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Bnc^HB^ li)ot(^Hs 



Edited by ANDREW LANG 



GEOEGE CANNING 



FKANK H^HILL 
1/ 




NEW YORK 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

1887 






APR 22 1946 
THE UBRARY OF CONGRESS 



PEEFACE 



The materials of a Life of Canning are scattered over 
the newspapers of the period which it covers, Hansard 
and the ' Annual Register,' the Parliamentary papers, 
and the memoirs and diaries of his contemporaries. 
Of formal biographies, the late Mr. Robert Bell's in- 
teresting ^ Life of George Canning ' contains a good 
deal of information, drawn from various sources, espe- 
cially as regards his family history ; but it is not always 
accurate, and the author writes rather as a man of 
letters than as a politician. The works of Mr. Augustus 
Stapleton, who was Canning's private secretary towards 
the close of his career — ^ Political Life of George 
Canning ' and ^ George Canning and his Times ' — are 
rather political apologies than biographies, though they 
contain much valuable material, especially in the letters 
of Canning to Lord Boringdon, afterwards Earl of 
Morley. An anonymous work, ' Memoirs of the Right 
Hon. George Canning,' in two volumes, published in 
1828, apparently as a bookseller's speculation to meet 



IV 



Preface 



an interest aroused by Canning's recent death, is a fairly- 
executed compilation from his speeches and from the 
* Annual Register.' The more important of Canning's 
speeches, many of them revised by himself, were collected 
in six volumes by Mr. Robert Therry, who prefixed to 
them a short biographical sketch. 

It would be difficult to mention any political me- 
moirs, diaries, or correspondence published during the 
past half century in which the name of Canning does 
not occur, and which do not incidentally throw light 
upon his character or on the impression made by him 
during his lifetime. Omitting ephemeral publications, 
and Mr. J. Frank Newton's pamphlet, ' The Early Days 
of George Canning,' the list would possibly begin with 
the 'Life of Sir James Mackintosh,' published in 1835, 
and would for the moment end with Mr. Hodder's 
' Life of the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury.' It includes, 
with others, the ' Diaries and the Letters to his Family 
of the first Earl of Malmesbury,' the ' Life and Letters 
of William Wilberforce,' Lord Stanhope's ' Life of Pitt,' 
and Lord John Russell's ' Memorials ' and ' Life of 
C. J. Fox ; ' Mr. Edmund Phipps's ' Memoir of Robert 
Plume Ward ; ' the ' Diaries and Correspondence of 
George Rose ; ' Mr. Horace Twiss's ' Life of Lord 
Eldon ; ' the ' Diaries and Correspondence of Lord Col- 
chester ; ' the Duke of Buckingham's ' Memoirs of the 
Courts and Cabinets of George III., the Prince Regent, 
and George IV. ; ' the ' Wellington Despatches ; ' Mr. 



Preface v 

Pearce's ' Memoirs of the Marquis Wellesley ; ' Dean 
Pellew's ' Life of Viscount Sidmouth ; ' Mr. Spencer 
Walpole's ' Life of Spencer Perceval;' Mr. C. D. Yonge's 
' Life of the Second Earl of Liverpool ; ' the ' Memoirs 
of Sir Samuel Komilly ; ' Sir Denis Le Marchant's 
' Life of Viscount Althorp ; ' Lord Brougham's ' Life and 
Times ' by himself; the ' Journals and Correspondence 
of Lord Auckland ; ' Lockhart's ' Life of Sir Walter 
Scott ; ' the political writings of Cobbett ; the ' Memoirs 
of Sir W. Knighton ; ' the ' Works and Memoir of 
Hookham Frere ; ' the ' Memoirs of Lady Hester Stan- 
hope ; ' General Grey's ' The Early Life and Opinions of 
Charles, Earl Grey ; ' Sydney Smith's ' Plymley Letters ; ' 
Sir A. Alison's ' Memoirs of Lord Castlereagh and Sir 
Charles Stewart, Marquises of Londonderry ; ' M. Mar- 
cellus's ' Politique de la Restauration ; ' the Journals of 
Charles Greville, and the Croker Papers. 

It is curious to note in nearly all these writers and 
statesmen, of either party, a deep-seated dislike and dis- 
trust of Canning, or at best an adverse judgment of his 
conduct in the most notable controversies of his public 
life. Even the friendly feeling of Pitt, Malmesbury, 
and Wilberforce is qualified by misgiving. The only 
thorough exceptions — unless Mackintosh is to be in- 
cluded — are to be found, so far as I recollect, in the three 
men who after all knew him best — in Newton, Hookham 
Frere, and Stapleton. The chapter on ' The Canning 
Incident ' in Lord Beaconsfield's biography of Lord 



vi Preface 

George Bentinck deals with Peel's conduct, and not 
with Canning's. 

Estimates of Canning as a politician and orator will 
be found in Lord Brougham's ^ Statesmen of the Reign 
of George III.,' where a much more favourable view of 
him is taken than that given in Brougham's letters 
published in his '■ Life and Times ; ' in Lord Balling's 
' Historic Characters ; ' in Sir George Lewis's ' History 
of British Administrations,' and Mr. Kebbel's ' History 
of Toryism.' Among the writers of connected histories, 
Miss Martineau (' History of the Thirty Years' Peace ') 
is the passionate eulogist of Canning; Sir Archibald 
Alison (' History of Europe ') a fair, though unfavourable 
critic. Canning is the Wentworth of Mr. Plumer Ward's 
novel, ' De Yere,' and is drawn there in far more pleasing 
colours than those in which he appears in the same 
writer's ' Diaries.' 

In stating Canning's opinions, as expressed by him- 
self, I have endeavoured, even when the necessity of 
abridgment did not admit of quotation, to use, as far as 
possible, his own phrases. I have quoted freely from 
the squibs and lampoons represented in ' The Spirit of 
the Public Journals,' not because of the intrinsic value 
of these productions, but because, with Wolcot's poems 
and Canning's own, they illustrate the temper of the 
time, and the moral and political atmosphere which he 
breathed. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER VAOtS 

— I. The Canning Family 1 

^11. Boyhood and Schooldays 8 

^11. The ' Microcosm ' . , 17 

IV. Christ Church 23 

-V. Mental Training and Recreation . . .30 

VI. In London — Introduction to Pitt . , . . 39 

VII. In the House of Commons 48 

VIII. At the Foreign Office 54 

IX. The ' Anti-Jacobin ' 60 

X. Domestic Relations 69 

XI. Attacks on Addington 74 

XII. The Second Pitt Administration . . . . 85 

Xin. Canning and the Grenville-Fox Ministry . 92 

XIV. The Portland Administration- Mr. Canning 

Foreign Secretary 106 



viii Contents 

CHAPTER PA.GIC 

XV. Canning, Castlereagh, and Perceval . . 121 

XVI. The Perceval Ministry — Canning Out of Office 127 

XVII. Assassination of Mr. Perceval - Formation of 

THE Liverpool AojiiNisTiiATioN . . . j:;.") 

—XVIII. Four Years Out of Office Ml 

_^XIX. In and Out of Office 118 

XX. Ministerial Leader and Foreign Secretary . 162 

XXI. Canning Prime Minister 183 

'-'XXII. Death of Canning 194 

.^-XXIII. Orator and Statesman— In Private Life . . 199 

INDEX 225 



GEOEGE CANNING. 

CHAPTER I. 

THE CANNING FAMILY. 

George Canning, who died in 1827, Prime Minister of 
England, was born in London on April 11, 1770. In 
a letter to Sir Walter Scott, consciously or uncon- 
sciously parodying a remark of Steele's, lie described 
himself as an Irishman accidentally born in London. 
His immediate ancestors would doubtless have de- 
scribed themselves as Englishmen accidentally born 
in Ireland. The Canning family had originally been 
settled at Bishop's Canynge, in Wiltshire, a village the 
name of which seems to indicate the lay appropri- 
ation of an ecclesiastical estate. There they remained 
until the reign of Henry VII. From the earliest 
periods of English history the well-known couplet ot 
Pope has expressed a division of family pursuits, if not 
of family characteristics : 

Boist'rous and rough, your first son is a squire, 
Your second a tradesman, meek and much a liar. 

In the reign of Edward 11. a scion of the Canning 

B 



2 George Canning 

stock transplanted himself from Wiltshire to Bristol, 
then perhaps the chief seat of English industry, and 
the natural outlet for the ' west countree 'to the sea 
and the world beyond. The Cannings presently took 
and long maintained their place among the notables ot 
Bristol. In the reign of Edward III. and Eichard II. 
William Canning was six times mayor of Bristol, and 
represented it in successive Parliaments. Another Wil- 
liam Canning, his grandson, was also mayor of Bristol, 
and figures in the Rowley forgeries of Chatterton. It 
was in a chest in St. Mary's Church, known as ' Mr. 
Canynge's cofre,' that ' the sleepless soul who ^^erished 
in his pride ' professed to have discovered the manu- 
scripts to which he gave an air of antiquity by stamp- 
ing them under his feet, putting them up the chimney, 
and smearing them with ochre. Another Canning 
migrated to London, becoming Lord Mayor, and re- 
ceiving knighthood in 1486. A grandson of the elder 
brother of ' Rowley ' Canning married the daughter of 
John Salmon and Eustatia his wife, the latter being 
the heiress of an old Warwickshire family, the Le Mar- 
shals of Foxcote. From him the Irish Cannings, and 
the statesman, are descended. In 1618, some time 
after the regular plantation of Ulster, James I. granted 
the manor of Garvagh, in the county Londonderry, to 
George Canning, youngest son of Richard Canning of 
Foxcote. It was Strafford's maxim in the subsequent 
reign that where ' plantations did not reach, defective 
title should extend.' The practice was no doubt older 
than the maxim. It was deemed prudent to ' line the 
disaffected Roman Catholic population with Protestant 
guards,' and for this purpose ' discoverers with eagle 



The Canning Family 3 

eyes,' as tlie report of an Irisli Parliament calls tliem, 
went about detecting or inventing flaws in title. George 
Canning of Garvagli appears to have acted as one of 
tlie agents of tlie Corporation of London, to whom the 
lands forfeited after the rebellion of Tyrone and O'Don- 
nell were granted — a cession to which the count}' of 
Londonderry owes its formation and its name. His 
descendants had to fight for their estates. William, 
his son, was killed in the Great Irish Rebellion of 
Sir Phelim O'Neill. William's son George was attainted 
by the L'ish Parliament in 1689, but the attainder 
was reversed and his estates were restored to him 
in 169L 

George Canning, the father of the statesman, was 
the eldest son of Stratford Canning of Garvagh, the 
first bearer of those names afterwards celebrated. 
His grandmother was the daughter of Robert Strat- 
ford of Baltinglass. George Canning having formed 
an attachment which his parents disapproved, be- 
took himself, on an allowance of 150/. a year, to 
London. The lady seems to have been his Rosaline, 
and not his Juliet, for he did not marry her. George 
Canning read for the bar and was called to it, 
became a small poet and a political pamphleteer, fre- 
quented Dodsley's shop, married, had children, set up 
as a wine merchant, found it impossible to live, and 
died. He was the author of a poetic ' Epistle from 
William Lord Russell to William Lord Cavendish,' in 
which the doctrines of the Whigs of the Revolution are 
set forth, for the benefit of George III. and Bute, and 
of an English ' Version of the First Three Books of the 
Anti-Lucretius of Cardinal Polignac,' a Latin poem 

B 2 



4 George Canning 

wMcli, refuting the doctrines of Epicurus by those ot 
Descartes, was extravagantly praised by Voltaire. The 
ethics of translation were not then understood as they 
are now, and Canning takes credit to himself for having 
corrected the political opinions of his author, making 
the Italian cardinal speak the language of a patriotic 
Englishman. An attack upon this book in the ' Cri- 
tical Eeview ' led Canning into a fierce controversy with 
Smollett, whom he suspected of being his assailant, 
anticipating the fend of English bards and Scotch 
reviewers, and possibly with as little reason for his 
suspicion as Lord Byron had for his. The elder George 
Canning was the author also of ' A Letter to Lord 
Hillsborough on the Connection between Great Britain 
and the American Colonies,' defending the policy of the 
Government on the principles laid down by Dr. John- 
son in his pamphlet, ' Taxation no Tyranny.' Lord Hills- 
borough w^as President of the Board of Trade and Plan- 
tations, and the letter was naturally enough addressed 
to him ; an additional reason may perhaps be found in the 
fact that, like Canning himself. Lord Hillsborough was 
an L-ishman and an Ulster man. If any hope of ad- 
vancement was entertained by the author, it seems to 
have been disappointed. The elder Canning published a 
collected edition of his poetic works, including a further 
translation of the fourth and fifth books of the ' Anti- 
Lucretius,' and a prefatory address to his friend and 
teacher, Seth Thompson, D.D., in which he reviews his 
position : 

How have I fall'n beneath fell Fortune's frown ! 
How seen my vessel founder in the deep, 
Her ablest pilot, Prudence, laid to sleep I 



The Canning Family 5 

But hence Despondence ! hell-born hag, away ! 
Oft lowers the morn when radiance gilds the day. 
Hard if all hope were dead, all spirit gone, 
And every prospect closed at thirty-one ! 
Then welcome Law ! poor Poesy, farewell ! 
Though in thy cave the loves and graces dwell, 
One chancery cause in solid worth outweighs 
Dryden's strong sense and Pope's harmonious lays. 

Unfortunately the one Chancery cause seems to 
have been as little within Canning's reach as Dryden's 
sense or Pope's harmony. By way of committing the 
guidance of his vessel to her ablest pilot, Prudence, 
Canning married in May 1768, a year after he had 
published this farewell to poesy, a portionless young 
lady, Miss Mary Annie Costello, then resident with her 
grandfather, Sir Guy Dickens, in Wigmore Street. 
This Sir Guy Dickens appears to be the Colonel Guy 
Dickens who enters an appearance, off and on, in 
Carlyle's ' Life of Frederick the Great.' He was Secretary 
to the British Legation at Berlin at the time of the 
double-marriage negotiations, and he had a good deal 
to do with the domestic and political troubles of the 
time, with the escapades of the Crown Prince, and the 
intrigues which led to his attempt to get to England, 
his imprisonment, and the execution of the unhappy 
Katte. Carlyle seems to have taken a liking for Guy 
Dickens, describing him as a ' brisk, handy military 
man,' '• clear, ingenuous, ingenious,' ' with eyes brisk 
enough, and lips well shut.' Except in the last cha- 
racteristic, some trace of the statesman may be found 
in these qualities. Canning, after his marriage, had 
got deeply into debt. The family consented to pay his 



6 George Canning 

debts on condition of his consenting to cut off tlie 
entail of the estates, which were then settled upon his 
younger brother Paul, whose descendants owe the 
baronage of Garvagh, in the Irish peerage, to the son 
of the disinherited head of their family. The third 
brother, Stratford, was the father of Sir Stratford 
Canning, afterwards Lord Stratford de Redcliffe. 

The abilities of the elder George Canning seem 
to have been just enough to tempt him into lite- 
rature and politics, and not enough to win success in 
either. The time of his residence in London, from 
1757-71, was not unfavourable to a literary adventurer. 
The age of newspapers and reviews and magazines was 
beginning. Political pamphleteering had received a 
new development. The booksellers were on the look- 
out for recruits. It was the period of Johnson's 
pamphlets, and Churchill's satires, and Junius's letters, 
of Smollett and of Wilkes, of the * Briton ' and of the 
^ North Briton,' of the ' Monthly Review ' and of the 
' Critical Review.' A political partisan who could strike 
hard, quick and home, whose pen was sharply pointed, 
and dipped in ink that was made of gall, might have 
made his mark, and earned a daily dinner and an ulti- 
mate pension. But the elder George Canning had not 
the intellectual qualifications, nor perhaps the moral dis- 
qualifications, for this rough conflict. He hung about 
among the people who met at Dodsley, the footman- 
poet and bookseller's, and at his successor's, but he was 
rather in than of their set. In trade the elder Canning 
did not prove more successful than he had been in 
poetry, pamphleteering, and law. The despondence 
which he had defied at thirty-one overpowered him at 



The Canning Family 7 

thirty-five. On April 11, 1771, lie gave up the struggle 
for existence. He was buried in the graveyard of the 
church in Marylebone in which he had been married. 
On his tomb the following inscription, said to have 
been written by his wife, was placed : — 

Thy virtues and my woe no words can tell ; 
Therefore, a little while, my George, farewell. 
For faith and love like ours Heaven has in store 
Its last best gift — to meet and part no more. 



George Canning 



CHAPTER II. 

BOYHOOD AND SCHOOLDAYS. 

George Canning the elder died just a year to the 
day after liis son's birth. A daughter born a year 
before had lived only a few months. The family of 
Garvagh had put a private interpretation on the Scrip- 
ture about visiting the widow and orphan in their 
affliction, and withdrew from them the allowance of 
150Z. a year which they had granted to the disinherited 
eldest son. How the two years following the death of 
the elder George Canning were spent by his widow does 
not appear to be on record. In 1773 the usual re- 
source of the impoverished British female possessing 
youth, good looks, ability, and energy presented itself 
to the mind of Mrs. Canning. She bethought herself 
of the stage. According to Mr. Bell, Mrs. Canning 
owed her chance of making her first appearance to the 
kind intervention of Queen Charlotte. Garrick, who 
was manager of Drury Lane, was officially His Majesty's 
servant ; he was eager to be socially Her Majesty's 
servant also, and at her suggestion an engagement was 
offered to Mrs. Canning. Mr. Bell conjectures that the 
good offices of Mrs. Canning's uncle, Mr. Gustavus Guy 
Dickens, one of the grooms of the Queen's chamber. 



Boyhood and Schooldays 9 

and of Lord Harcourt were employed. But Mrs. Can- 
ning appeared on the stage in 1773, and neither Mr. 
Guy Dickens nor Lord Harcourt held court appoint- 
ments at that date. 

Mrs. Canning essayed, on November 6, 1773, the 
part of Jane Shore in the play of that name, Garrick 
himself resuming that of Hastings, while the good-for- 
nothing Reddish, who was afterwards Mrs. Canning's 
second husband, took the i^art of Dumont. She seems 
to have had that sort of success which is known as 
' success of esteem,' and which consists of a cold approval 
or absence of disapproval. Bernard, the provincial 
manager, of whose company at Plymouth and elsewhere 
she was afterwards a member, and who was present at 
the performance, says, ' She put forth claims to the 
approbation of the critical.' But the approbation of 
the critical, though it may intrinsically outweigh the 
plaudits of a whole pitful of others, does not fill the 
treasury. Mrs. Canning repeated the part of Jane 
Shore the following evening, aud altogether appeared 
in it six times. But when the difficulty of coming out 
had been overcome, the still greater difficulty of keep- 
ing out had to be encountered. Mrs. Canning retired 
into the background of the stage until she faded from 
Drury Lane altogether. Her subsequent theatrical 
career was almost entirely, if not entirely, confined to 
what, in its theatrical sense, there can be, we imagine, 
no objection to calling ' the provinces.' Its course 
is a little confused by her marriage with the actor 
Reddish, a polygam^ic person, whose name was borne, 
not merely in rapid succession but simultaneously, by 
a j)erfect troupe of theatrical ladies. In a letter to 



10 George Canning 

Garrick, Miss Hannali More says of tliis very much 
and at the same time too little married person, who was 
then manager of the Bristol theatre, ' This is the second 
or third wife he has produced at Bristol. In a short 
time we have had a whole bunch of Eeddishes, all of 
them remarkably unpungent.' 

The audience, wisely discriminating between the 
provinces of art and morality, used to pelt Keddish in 
his personal character when he first appeared, in one 
instance, as Hannah More records, protracting this 
operation for a quarter of an hour. Then, having given 
expression to their injured moral susceptibilities, they 
allowed him to proceed with the counterfeit presentment 
with which he was charged for the evening. This man, 
who seems to have had more than the vices of the elder 
Kean without a spark of his genius, ultimately drank 
and debauched himself into a state of imbecility, and 
died in the York Asylum when Canning was fifteen 
years of age. Canning had, however, some years before 
been happily rescued from this dangerous guardianship. 
Moody, the actor, appealed on his behalf to his uncle, 
Mr. Stratford Canning, who had become a man of note 
in the world of business and in the political societ}^ of 
London, but who seems, for whatever reason, to have 
left his struggling and unhappy elder brother to die 
unaided and unnoticed.. Mr. Stratford Canning was at 
this time a member of the firm of French, Burroughs, 
and Canning, merchants and bankers. Moody called 
on him or wrote to him and told him that his nephew, 
though full of promise, was at present on the high road 
to the gallows. 

Of this portion of Ms life Canning seems never to 



Boyhood and Schooldays ii 

liave spoken, though he cannot have forgotten it. 
Perhaps it was among the things which are harder to 
recollect than to endure, for the reverse of Dante's 
saying is often true, and in happy days the recollection 
of bygone misery is the heaviest of griefs. It may be 
doubted whether Canning would, in any circumstances, 
have taken to the road indicated by Moody. His 
industry, self-restraint and prudent circumspection 
were as conspicuous throughout his career as his bold 
and brilliant genius. His course might have indeed 
been different. But for Moody, his name might have 
been joined with those of Garrick, Kemble, and Kean, 
and not with those of Chatham, Pitt, and Peel. Wil- 
berforce, on the authority of a schoolfellow of Canning's, 
mentions the passion for theatricals which he displayed 
at Eton. As Addison was ransomed from the Church 
— the phrase is correct, for he was almost literally 
bought out of it — for service to the State by Lord 
Halifax, so Canning, through Moody's generous inter- 
vention, may have been redeemed from Drury Lane for 
St. Stephen's and Downing Street. An arrangement 
was made with the Garvagh family by which an estate 
of 200Z. a year was settled upon the young Canning 
for his education and maintenance. He was sent in 
the first instance to Hyde Abbey, near Winchester, of 
which a certain Mr. Eichards was the master. Mr. 
Richards seems to have been a hard flogger ; Canning, 
however, was probably at Hyde Abbey School, as after- 
wards at Eton, the model good boy for whom birches 
and canes had no terrors. Here he gave promise of 
the qualities which he displayed later in life. He 
gained a prize for a poem on West's picture of the 



12 George Canning 

resurrection of Lazarus, which forms the altar-piece of 
the cathedral of Winchester. Possibly but for Moody's 
intervention he might have emulated the achievements 
of Master Betty, for he is said, in acting the part of 
Orestes in an adaptation of Euripides, to have powerfully 
delineated — that is, as powerfully as was possible to an 
innocent child — the remorse of the matricide. He was 
more usefully employed in storing his memory with 
the language and images of Gray, the whole of whose 
English poems he learned by heart. Canning, at any 
rate, did not carry away from Hyde Abbey any ani- 
mosity to Mr. Richards, or, if he did, it wore out in the 
course of time, for one of his first acts of ecclesiastical 
patronage was to bestow on his old master, who survived 
his pupil six years, a prebendal stall in Winchester 
Cathedral. 

When Canning, then eleven years old, left Hyde 
Abbey for Eton in 1781, he was at once put into the 
lower fourth form. The Eton of George III.'s time 
bore a much closer resemblance to the Eton of Holy 
Henry's institution than to that of Queen Victoria. 
Prizes for modern languages, science masters, pre- 
parations for army examinations were unknown. It 
was as much a playground as a school. The games 
played were, as manuscripts published by Mr. Lyte 
in his ' History of Eton College ' show, more nume- 
rous than the books read, and the nomenclature of 
the sports requires a scholarship of its own for its 
understanding. The majority of the boys played a 
good deal, were punished a good deal, and learned a 
little. 

Red-letter days, founders' days, and court days 



Boyhood and Schooldays 13 

tlirew the macliineiy of instruction periodically out of 
gear. A whole holiday on one day, a half-holiday on 
another, and a play at four on the third, made havoc 
of time. Greek and Latin extracts, Latin verse, a 
smattering of geography and mathematics, the Church 
Catechism, and 'The Whole Duty of Man' formed the 
school course. For voluntary and private study in the 
leisure hours the boys of the fifth and sixth forms were 
commended to Dr. Middleton's ' Cicero,' Tully's ' Offices,' 
Ovid's ' Long and Short Verses,' ' Spectator,' &c., Milton, 
Pope, ' Roman History,' Porter's ' Antiquities,' and Ken- 
net's ' Antiquities,' and all other books necessary to 
make a complete scholar. The ' &c. ' and ' all other 
books ' enlarge at pleasure the range of tlie somewhat 
narrow selection, but being of private interpretation 
they do not form a very rigid injunction to individual 
study. 

The provost and the head-master of Eton in Can- 
ning's time suited the place as it then was. The pro- 
vost was the Rev. William Hay ward Roberts, known as 
' Double Gloucester ' from the county that had given 
him birth and the good living which had given him cor- 
pulence. Miss Burney describes him as ^ very fat, with a 
large paunch and gouty legs, good-natured, loquacious, 
gay, civil and parading.' Elsewhere she notes him as 
' a goodly priest, fat, jovial, breathing plenty, ease and 
good living.' He had paid at one period of his life the 
usual debt of scholarship to the booksellers in a poem 
entitled ' Judah Restored,' and a treatise on the ' Errors 
of the English Version of the Old Testament.' The 
head-master of Eton was Dr. Jonathan Davies, who 
afterwards succeeded Roberts as provost. Davies had 



14 George Canning 

been tutor to the Marquis Wellesley, to wliom he 
always showed, as Wellesley gratefully acknowledged, 
the solicitude and aflfection of a kind parent. Accord- 
ing to Hookham Frere, ' Davies was the very incar- 
nation of authority. We boys never dreamed of his 
condescending to any other physical exercise than that 
of flogging us.' He was a king of boys, and his sub- 
jects jealously scrutinised his demeanour in his relations 
with other royal personages. * He used,' Frere says, 
' to be watched b}^ the boys when George III. came 
over to Eton, to see that he did not play the courtier 
too much, and very w^ell he managed it.' Davies was 
given to the pleasures of the table, including table-talk, 
and in his later days, at least when he was provost, 
found London more attractive than Eton. ' Sooner,' 
says the author of ' Pursuits of Literature,' seeking to 
find an image for the impossible — 

Sooner stentorian Davies cease to talk, 
And for his Eton quit his Bond Street walk. 

He was on terms of intimate conviviality with the 
Prince of Wales, towards whom he seems to have 
exhibited the equality of a boon companion, as he 
exhibited the equality of a potentate with George III. 
The Prince, when they were dining together, had ven- 
tured to mention Homer. This was more than a pro- 
vost and an ex-head-master could endure. ' What do 
you know about Homer ? ' retorted Davies, whose feasting 
had been Homeric. ' I bet you don't know a line of 
the poet.' The Prince took the bet and retorted with 
the line (II. i. 225) : 



Boyhood and Schooldays 15 

If not true, well invented. It is wliat the prince 
miglit liave said. 

The tribute paid by Wellesley to Davies makes it 
possible that his scholarship and deportment may have 
gone for something in the training of Canning, but the 
truth seems to be that Canning was always rather a 
master among the boys than a boy under the masters. 

An entry in Wilberforce's Diary says : ' C knew 

Canning well at Eton. He never played at any game 
with the other boys ; fond of acting, decent and moral.' 
The fact that, though without distinction in the playing 
fields, and taking no part in the sports of the schools, 
he was not considered a ' miss ' or a ^ muff,' shows how 
strong was the ascendency of his genius and character. 
He was never in any scrapes. Though he had learned 
Gray by heart, he was not, while at Eton at least, one 
of ' those bold adventurers who disdain the limits of 
their little reign,' nor ' snatched a fearful joy ' in the 
sense of being out of bounds. There is no evidence 
that he ever ' delighted to cleave with pliant arm the 
glassy wave,' or ' enthralled ' proleptically ' the captive 
linnet,' nor ever ' chased the rolling circle's speed or 
urged the flying ball.' He ' sapped like Gladstone,' but 
did not ' fight like Spring.' He pursued the course of 
private reading necessary to make him ' the complete 
scholar,' especially familiarising himself with the 
^ Spectator,' &c. Verses of his are in the ' Musas 
Etonenses.' He took part in the Debating Society, in 
which a regular speaker, a treasury bench, ministers, 
opposition, right honourable and honourable gentlemen, 
and noble lords figured. He helped to set on foot the 
'Microcosm,' and wrote the best articles in it. Eton 



1 6 George Canning 

was to him the ' Microcosm ' of the world which he was 
about to enter, and he rehearsed in it the part he 
aspired to and was destined to play in the greater 
world beyond. Among his schoolfellows were those 
who would afterwards be his allies or antagonists in 
literature and public life. First among them was 
Hookhara Frere, who, though by a year his elder, 
vowed to him a passionate devotion which grew 
stronger through nearly half a centur}^, until Canning's 
death. Frere was his associate in the 'Microcosm' 
and the ' An ti- Jacobin ; ' his successor in the Under 
Secretaryship for Foreign Affairs in Pitt's first Adminis- 
tration ; his minister, during Canning's first Foreign 
Secretaryship, at Madrid. Speaking in old age to his 
nephew and biographer, Frere said : * I think, twenty 
years ago. Canning's death would have caused mine ; as 
it is, the time seems so short, I do not feel it as I 
otherwise should.' Canning was already regarded by 
masters and boys as having the future and the world 
at his disposal to do what he liked with. Next to him, 
Frere said, ' Bobus ' Smith, the brother of Sydney, was 
deemed sure to distinguish himself. In spite of his 
deplorable Whig connections, great things were looked 
for from Lambton ; but the greatest thing which came ot 
him was his son, the first Earl of Durham. Of Morn- 
ington, afterwards Marquis Wellesley — who belonged, 
however, to an earlier Eton generation — though the boys 
thought well of him, little was expected by the masters, 
in spite of his Latin verses, in comparison with ' Bobus ' 
Smith and Lambton. 



1/ 



CHAPTER III. 

THE 'MICROCOSM.' 

The ' Microcosm,' wliicli still holds its place among 
the curiosities of schoolboy literature, and has several 
times been reprinted, was started on November 6, 
1786, when Canning was sixteen years of age. It was 
published in Windsor once a week, price twopence. 
It appeared under the pseudonymous editorship of 
Mr, Gregory Griffin, who was its Isaac BickerstafF, its 
Sylvanus Urban, its Christopher North, its Oliver 
Yorke. Its real editor appeared to have been James 
Smith, the brother of Bobus — it need scarcely be said 
not of Horace — and among its contributors were, be- 
sides Canning and the editor, Bobus Smith, Hookham 
Frere, and Lord Henry Spencer. It lasted through 
forty numbers, extending over nearly two years, ex- 
piring when James Smith left Eton. The copyright 
was sold for fifty guineas to Mr. Charles Knight, of 
Windsor, the father of the better-known publisher of 
that name, and the document which records the 
transfer bears the signature of Canning. 

The ' Microcosm ' is the work of boys in tail-coats 
and stuck-up collars — boys in the garb of men — and 
produces the sort of effect on the reader which the 
acting of a play by one of those aieries of children, of 

C 



1 8 George Canning 

which Shakespeare, all the manager swelling in his 
soul, bitterly complains must have produced on the 
theatre-goers* of that day. The reflections are for the 
most part the insincere anticipation at fifteen or sixteen 
of the commonplaces which become truths of con- 
viction and experience at fifty or sixty. There is no 
trace in the ' Microcosm ' of those passions which inspired 
the Eton boy as he is described in the opening pages 
of ' Coningsby ' : ' In that young bosom what burning 
love, what intense ambition, what avarice, what lust of 
power, envy that fiends might emulate, hate that men 
might fear ! ' The difference is obvious between the 
youth of a period nourished on the ^ Spectator, &c.,' 
and the youth of a period nourished on ' Childe Harold,' 
* Manfred,' and the ' Corsair,' Among Canning's con- 
tributions, which are distinguished by the letter ' B,' 
is a sarcastic epistle from Mr. Gregory Griffin, acknow- 
ledging with gratitude his obligations to the gentlemen 
who are kind enough to assume responsibility for his 
writings, but requesting them to settle among them- 
selves, and inform him who is the author of what, so 
that there may be no confusion, and his bookseller may 
have proper directions if called upon to enforce their 
respective claims. The reverence of the Microcosmists 
for the ' Spectator, &c.,' did not prevent Canning from 
writing a parody — perhaps the cleverest thing in the 
magazine — on Addison's celebrated criticism of ' Chevy 
Chase,' in the form of a review of an epic poem, entitled 
the ' Queen of Hearts,' representing the theft, detection, 
and punishment by the king of the knave of hearts, 
who had purloined and carried off certain tarts manu- 
factured by the royal hands of his consort. A ' Poem 



The ^Microcosm' 19 

on the Slavery of Greece,' full of generous sentiment, 
does not rise much above the level of his unfortunate 
father's compositions. Canning's poetical genius lay in 
the mocking and not in the heroic vein, and he was 
seldom kindled with anything more ardent than the 
artificial fires of rhetoric. To the second number of 
the ' Microcosm ' Canning contributed a paper on the 
^Art of Swearing,' ridiculing the profane habits of 
speech common at that time, and incidentally satirising 
the mania for foreigners. Whether or not virtue can 
be taught, swearing surely can. Some person, having 
first un-Englished his name, calling himself Pedro if he 
be Peters, Nicolini if he be Nicholls, Girardot if he be 
Gerard, might, he suggests, issue a ' Complete Oath- 
Kegister, or Every Man his own Swearer,' containing 
oaths and imprecations for all purposes and occasions. 
There were also to be sentimental oaths for ladies, 
who might object to the good mouth-filling oath that 
Hotspur recommended to his wife. The idea of this 
paper was probably derived from Bob Acres' new 
method of sentimental or referential swearing intro- 
duced to the world twelve years before by Sheridan. 
The writer also proposes to draw up a list of execrations 
suitable to the year 1786. In the seventh number. 
Canning, in the character of an Eton boy, describes 
his sufferings as a visitor to a supposititious uncle who 
cruelly proposes examination into his attainments by 
the parson of the parish, and who makes unkind jokes 
about orchard robbing, the mutton of the Eton dinner- 
tables, and the necessity for providing cushions for 
what Sheridan, in reference to Pitt, once called the 
sitting part of a lad supposed to bear in his person the 

c 2 



20 George Canning 

marks and sting of the rod. Commenting upon this 
letter in the person of Mr. Gregory Griffin, Canning 
proposes to make application to Parliament for permission 
to open a licensed warehouse for wit, and for a patent 
entitling the grantee to the sole vending and uttering 
of wares of this sort for a given term of years. ' For 
this purpose,' he says, ' I have already laid in jokes, 
jests, witticisms, morceaus, and bons mots of every kind. 
... I have epigrams that want nothing but the sting. 
Impromptus will be got ready at a week's notice.' In 
the shape of a letter from a certain Mr. Homespun, 
written in indignant protest against the ill-natured 
prejudices of which weavers and tailors are the sub- 
jects. Canning banteringly insists on the analogy be- 
tween the arts of weaving and of poetry as shown in 
the language common to both. Making a curious 
application of the Protectionist principle, he proposes 
that literary metaphors shall in future be drawn ex- 
clusively from branches of native industry. In another 
paper Canning weighs the better morality and inferior 
art of Sir Charles Grandison against the better art and 
more doubtful morality of Tom Jones. A maturer 
judgment would perhaps have seen less to blame in 
the naked and honest grossness of Fielding than in 
the Puritanic prurience of Richardson. Another essay 
gives a mock preference to Newbery's books over the 
novels of the day. The adventures of Mr. Thomas 
Thumb and Mr. John Hucklethriffc are commented 
on, and, by the aid of parallel passages from Homer, 
a correspondence is established between the characters 
of Hucklethrift and Achilles, of Thumb and Ulysses. 
A letter from ' Nobody ' is based on a play of words as 



The 'Microcosm' 21 

old as tlie Ovtis of the Odyssey. ' Nobody ' develops 
the relations in which he stands to his kinsmen ' Every- 
body,' ' Somebody/ ' Anybody/ ' What's his name/ 
^ Thing'um Bob/ &c. Everybody is endeavouring to 
be Somebody ; no one is satisfied to be Nobody, who 
is made the subject of injurious and defamatory 

statements, such as 'Nobody is more wicked .' 

In the thirty-ninth number of the ' Microcosm,' Mr. 
Griffin gives an account of his life, now drawing to a 
close, and grows weaker in the process of telling it. 
A proposal is made for the publication of a selection ot 
Griffiniana. As an illustration of the quick wit of this 
illustrious man, and of a readiness of repartee which 
the recorder and subject of Mr. Burnand's 'Happy 
Thoughts' might have envied, the following anecdote 
is narrated. One day, being accosted by a friend who 
saluted him with the remark, ' How do you do, Mr. 
Griffin ? ' he replied, without the smallest hesitation, 
' Pretty well, I thank you, sir. I hope you are well.' 

The preceding outline will convey some idea of the 
character of the ' Microcosm,' and especially of Canning's 
contributions to it. They show his facility in using the 
materials which his time of life, his powers of mind, 
and his reading had given him. The magazine gave 
an early notoriety to its authors. Fanny Burney, 
nominally one of the dressers, really to a great extent 
one of the readers, of Queen Charlotte, and always a 
strong Canningite, brought several of the numbers of 
the magazine under the notice of her royal mistress. 
Mentioning in her diary a visit of the King and Queen 
to Eton in 1787, she says : ' The speeches were chiefly 
Latin and Greek, three or four in English. Some were 



22 George Canning 

pronounced extremely well, especially those spoken by 
the chief composers of the " Microcosm," Canning and 
Smith.' Canning occupied the post of honour in 
delivering what appears to have been the final speech 
at Eton in 1787. 



i 



23 



CHAPTER IV. 

CHRIST CHURCH. 

On leaving Eton, Canning entered himself as a student 
at Lincoln's Inn. ' George Canning, gentleman, only 
son of George Canning, Esq., of Middle Temple, de- 
ceased,' was ^admitted June 27, 1787.' Later in the 
same year. Canning went to Christ Church, Oxford, 
then presided over by a very notable person, Dean 
Cyril Jackson. Dr. Jackson was one of those men 
who make history by helping to make the men who 
form it. Without playing a part in the drama him- 
self, he was behind the scenes prompting the actors 
and directing the stage management. Christ Church 
at the end of the eighteenth century was in some 
degree what Balliol became since, and the Dean 
discharged something of the honorary functions in 
relation to society which the Master once exercised. 
Jackson was the director of the youthful nobility and 
gentry who were destined to a political career. He 
had kept a diary of his own life and times, which, how- 
ever, he destroyed. Probably, if it had been preserved 
and printed, much light would have been thrown on 
some of the darker and more secret passages of the 
political history of his day. As it is, the Dean is only 
to be traced by the allusions to him which crop up in 



24 George Canning 

the memoirs and correspondence, and in the society 
novels of the ]3eriod. Dean Cyril Jackson is the 
President Herbert of Robert Plumer Ward's once cele- 
brated story of ' De Vere.' The President is described 
as at once a man of thought and of the world, in whom 
a look of command and the penetrating glance of a pair 
of keen though small black eyes were softened by the 
most polished courtesy. A certain air of superiority 
and protection, and a little pomp of manner, were set 
oif by a stately figure clad in the silk cassock and hat 
of the ecclesiastical dignitary. 

In 1771 Mr. Cyril Jackson, who had not yet taken 
orders, became sub-preceptor to the Prince of Wales and 
to his brother Frederick, Bishop of Osnaburg and Duke 
of York, then lads of nine and eight years of age re- 
spectively. He resigned this post in 1776 in resentment, 
gossip said, at the interference of the King with the 
education of his sons. He always maintained friendly 
relations with his royal pupils. He was in succession 
preacher at Lincoln's Inn, and Canon, and finally. Dean 
of Christ Church. He was content to be the clearer but 
lesser light at which the more glowing or smoky torches 
destined to illume the world, or to set it on fire, were 
kindled. Literary ambition he had none, or, if he had, 
literary fastidiousness killed it. The only record ot 
him which is to be found in that monument of the 
vanity and glory of literature, the catalogue of the 
British Museum, is a solitary entry under his name. It 
calls attention to a volume without a title-page con- 
taining the text, with Latin notes, of the first book ot 
Herodotus. The book has on the fly-leaf the following 
manuscript statement, signed ' H. Cotton ' : — ' This 



Christ Church 25 

volume contains a specimen of an edition of Herodotus, 
designed by Dr. Cyril Jackson, Dean of Christ Church, 
Oxford, commenced under his superintendence by the 
Rev. John Stokes, of Christ Church. It was executed 
in the Clarendon Press in Oxford. No more than this 
first book was printed, and this even was sup]3ressed 
before publication, title-page,' &c. His Greek scholar- 
ship is said to have shown itself in the nicety of his 
appreciation of each word in an author, and in his un- 
derstanding of the transitions of meaning which phrases 
and terms have undergone. His regard for the precise 
and idiomatic rendering of the force of the particles in 
Homer survives in the tradition of his translation of 
T/jwes" pa — ' The Trojans, God help them.' 

Dean Cyril Jackson was in the habit of entertaining 
at dinner every day six or eight of the members of his 
college whose faculties and peculiar bent it was his aim 
to correct or confirm in conversation. He occupied 
every Long Vacation in a home tour, taking some young 
friend with him as a companion, whose expenses he 
bore, visiting interesting objects and places of industry, 
avoiding only the great houses from which, if he entered 
them as a guest, it would be difiicult for him to escape. 
He conversed with everybody he could meet, of what- 
ever rank or pursuit, and is said to have had a greater 
knowledge of the social and economic condition of 
England than almost any man of his time. His home 
tours formed the subject of his conversations with his 
young guests when he returned to Christ Church, and 
he was able by his own experience to direct their 
vacation rambles properly, advising them what to see 
or bringing out the value of what they had seen. He 



26 George Canning 

made himself acquainted with tlie individual character 
of the young men for whom he had a regard, and, 
as will be seen, took a very special interest in Canning's 
future. Dean Jackson restricted himself to his college 
work, and did not take part in the more general 
business of the University. He was never Vice-Chan- 
cellor, or anything but Dean of Christ Church. During 
the twenty-six years of his Headship, from 1783-1809, 
he counted among his pupils an unusual proportion of 
those who afterwards filled the highest posts in the 
service of the State. But it was not merely in the 
equipment of the statesmen of the future that he in- 
fluenced public affairs. He was busy in the intrigue 
for the removal of Addington from the Premiership in 
the years 1803-4, and was much consulted in political 
combinations and projects. The reaction which is not 
unusual from worldliness in its legitimate character — 
a dignified and useful worldliness — to kindly other 
worldliness came upon Dean Jackson. In 1809 he 
resigned the Deanery of Christ Church, declining a 
Bishopric, and sought an almost absolute retirement in 
the village of Feltham, in Sussex, where he gave him- 
self up to the service of the poor. 

Such was the man who ruled Christ Church when 
Canning entered it in 1787. Canning's associates in 
a state of pupilage were not less remarkable, and many 
of them were destined to be his associates in public 
life and in political literature. Among them were 
Robert Jenkinson, on his father's elevation to an earl- 
dom, Lord Hawkesbury, and finally, Earl of Liverpool ; 
Lord Holland ; Viscount Morpeth, afterwards the 
Earl of Carlisle ; Lord Granville Leveson-Gower, after- 



Christ Church 27 

wards Earl Granville, the father of the living statesman 
of that name ; Charles Ellis, through life Canning's 
more intimate friend and confidant, afterwards Lord 
Seaforth ; Lord Boringdon, afterwards the Earl of 
Morley ; Lord Henry Spencer, an Eton friend of 
Canning's, a Microcosmist, and a younger son of the 
Duke of Marlborough ; Sir William Drummond, after- 
wards ambassador at Constantinople ; Francis Goddard, 
who ultimately became Archdeacon of Lincoln ; William 
Spencer, the fashionable drawing-room versifier ; and 
Vansittart, during many years the inevitable Tory 
Chancellor of the Exchequer, and afterwards Lord Bex- 
ley. Among his graver acquaintances was Dr. Jacob 
Bryant, the mythologist, then resident near Oxford. 

In 1828, the year following Canning's death, Mr. 
John Frank Newton, who seems to have enjoyed much 
of his intimacy, published, in a pamphlet entitled 
' Early Days of the Right Hon. George Canning,' an 
account of Canning's university life. He describes him 
as being at Christ Church much what Wilberforce's 
informant describes him at Eton. In his rooms at 
Peckwater, says Newton, he was always to be found 
with a pen or a book in his hand. He was indifferent 
to amusements, and took little exercise, not keeping a 
horse or even hiring one. Newton describes the Speak- 
ing Society, of which he as well as Canning was one of 
the six original members, the others being Jenkinson, 
Lord Henry Spencer, Drummond, and Goddard. In its 
constitution there was a whimsical blending of display 
and secrecy, a sort of ostentatious mystery. The mem- 
bers devdsed a uniform for themselves, the description 
of which recalls the uniform of the Pickwick Club. 



28 George Canning 

^ Sometimes,' Mr. Newton writes, ' we appeared at 
dinner in the hall dressed in our uniform, which was a 
brown coat of rather an uncommon shade, with velvet 
cuffs and collars. The buttons bore the initials of De- 
mosthenes, Cicero, Pitt, and Fox. Thus habited, and 
much the object of notice to every passing observer, we 
pleased ourselves with the excessive curiosity which our 
dress excited. As secret were we as the grave on all 
that concerned our oratorical institution, and it would 
be difficult to give an idea of the anxiety evinced by 
our fellow-students to discover the meaning of the 
brown coat and velvet cuffs.' The members met in the 
rooms of one or other of them every Thursday. They 
debated on some prearranged subject. After the dis- 
cussion was over, and before separating at night, a vote 
was taken, and the topic for the following Thursday 
was chosen. While Canning was the brilliant and 
vivacious orator of the society, Jenkinson, not less pre- 
figuring the statesman at the university, was its sen- 
sible and well-informed member. Newton says of him 
that he was not only a first-rate scholar, but had more 
general knowledge than any of his contemporaries at 
Christ Church. His acquaintance with histoiy and 
European politics was especially remarkable. The supe- 
riority of his attainments was not, however, offensively 
displayed, the conciliatory and benignant manner of 
the mature man already marking the youth. The club 
was broken up by the secession of Canning himself, 
as he explained in a letter to Newton dated Brighton, 
September 15, 1 7 8 8 , a year after its foundation . Newton 
had already left the University. ' That club, Newton,' he 
exclaims, in mock heroic vein, ' is no more ! " And what 



Christ Church 29 

dread event, what sacrilegious liand ? " you will exclaim. 
Newton, mine ! ' So long as the society was a secret 
one he was pleased to belong to it, and especially to try 
his strength with Jenkinson in anticipation of conflicts 
in the House of Commons, when Canning as a Whig 
might be brought into collision with Jenkinson as a 
Tory. But the Dean had spoken to Canning on the 
subject seriously, representing that the suspicion of 
parliamentary intentions would be injurious to him at 
the bar, and advising him to quit the society. The 
Dean only advised ; if he had affected to interfere with 
authority nothing would have induced Canning to leave 
the society. But he saw the reasonableness of the 
Dean's view, and on his return after the Easter Vaca- 
tion sent in his resignation through Lord Henry Spencer. 
' The message which Lord Henry brought occasioned, 
as it were, a combustion, which ended in the moving of 
some very violent resolutions. Among others, I was 
summoned to the bar ; of course refused to obey the 
summons. A deputation was then sent to interrogate 
me respecting the causes of my resignation, which, of 
course, I refused to reveal ; and they were at last satis- 
fied by my declaring that the reason of my resignation 
did not affect them collectively or individually.' The 
society suspended its meetings and abolished the uni- 
form. ' This, it seems, was intended,' Canning adds, 
' to punish me by carrying the face of a common and 
not a particular secession. It was not long, however, 
before the truth came out, and their nightly debates are 
again renewed ; not undiscovered, but with less pomp, 
regularity, numbers and vociferation.' 



30 George Canning 



CHAPTER V. 

MENTAL TRAINING AND RECREATION. 

There was no Oxford equivalent for tlie ' Microcosm ' in 
Canning's time, but he did not allow his faculty of verse- 
making to be confined to competitions for prize poems. 
He was already a lion in society. The flattery ot 
women was added to the favour of head-masters and of 
heads of houses, of the Microcosmic boys of Eton and 
the speaking young men of Christ Church. His college 
friendships introduced him to the town and country 
houses of great people, and his passage through them 
may be traced by verses in the ladies' albums and by 
poetic epistles after the fashion of the eighteenth cen- 
tury. As an Eton boy, part of his vacations had been 
spent at the house of his uncle, Mr. Stratford Canning, 
whither the Whig leaders of the day resorted. He was 
a frequent visitor at Crewe Hall, the residence of the 
celebrated heroine of the Whig toast, ' Buff and Blue 
and Mrs. Crewe,' and repaid her hospitalities by jocu- 
larities in prose and verse. Mrs. Crewe had a theory 
that all nervous affections produce a craving appetite. 
Canning, through some sixty or seventy lines, pursues 
the idea, and points the moral thus to himself and to 
her : — 



Mental Training and Recreation 31 

Dear Mrs. Crewe, this wondrous knowledge 
I own I never gained at College ; 
You are my tut'ress, would you quite 
Confirm your wavering proselyte % 
I ask you this : — to show your sorrow 
At my departure hence to-morrow, 
Add to your dinner, for my sake, 
A supernumerary steak. 

To Mrs. Leigh, of Leigh Hall, who had presented 
him with a pair of shooting breeches, he says that in a 
wife he will 

Ask not rank nor riches. 
For worth like thine alone I pray, 
Temper like thine, serene and gay. 
And formed like thee to give away, 
Not wear herself, the breeches ! 

A poetic epistle, written as from his friend Lord 
Boringdon to Lord Granville Leveson-Gower, tells how 
the heart of the supposititious writer, captured by Lady 
Elizabeth Spencer, has been 

Scorched and burnt to tinder. 
When talking to her at the winder. 

He aspired 

Proudly to bear the beauteous maid 
To Saltram's venerable shade ; 
Or, if she likes not woods of Saltram, 
Why nothing's easier than to alter 'em. 

But the lady became engaged to her cousin, William 
Spencer : — 

How changed the scene, for now, my Granville, 
Another match is on the anvil. 



32 George Canning 

And I, a widowed dove, complain, 
And find no refuge from my pain, 
Save that of pitying Spencer's sister, 
Who has lost a Lord and gained a Mister. 

These things, and things like these, were but the 
effervescence of a mind in which there were deeper 
workings, the bubbles and eddies on the surface of a 
stream in which the current was strong and steady, but 
which seemed shallower than it was, because its clear- 
ness minimised its apparent depth according to the 
well-known law of visual measurement. Beneath his 
seeming frivolity and levity Canning was possessed 
through life by a serious and persistent purpose. He 
doubled the parts of the ant and the butterfly in the 
fable. Mr. Newton, who was a West Indian, says that 
during his Oxford years Canning was profoundly 
interested in the Slavery question, in which in after 
life, within the limits imposed on him by his prudence 
of temper and his party connection, he always took the 
side of humanity. Mr. Newton, when he was about to 
return to the West Indies, suggested that Canning 
should accompany him thither ; but Canning had other 
plans. 'You must know,' he replied to his friends, 
' that I am most shamefully ignorant of French ! . . . 
By this time twelve months I intend to procure a 
smattering sufficient to call a coach or swear at a 
waiter, and then to put into execution a plan formed long 
ago in happier days, of going abroad with my three 
fellow-scribes, the Microcosm opolitans. . . . Our idea is 
not that of scampering through France and ranting in 
Paris, but a sober sort of thing — to go and settle for 
some months in some provincial town remarkable for 



Mental Training and Recreation 33 

the salubrity of its climate, tlie respectability of its 
inliabitants, and the purity of its language ; there to 
improve our constitutions by the first, to extend our 
acquaintance with men and manners by the second, and 
to qualify ourselves for a further extension of it by 
perfecting ourselves in the third.' 

In what manner and with what companions Canning 
put this plan into execution, or whether it was put into 
execution at all, is not apparent. When Canning, 
in 1807, became Foreign Minister, his imputed ig- 
norance of French was the subject of incessant news- 
paper gibes. He makes confession of his shortcomings 
at a period somewhat earlier. In a letter to Lord Boring- 
don, written in the beginning of the year 1800, he elabo- 
rately vindicates the use of English in diplomacy, which 
he had employed in the first note he ever drew up ; ' but 
for that,' he adds, ' I claim no great thanks, as I could 
not have written it in French.' 

The statute wdiich introduced examinations for 
honours at Oxford belongs to 1800. In Canning's day 
the degree of Bachelor of Arts was probably obtained 
as easily as it had been in that of Lord Eldon, some 
twenty years before. When Mr. John Scott went up 
for his degree he was examined in Hebrew and History. 
One question was put to him in each subject. ' What 
is the Hebrew for the place of a skull ? ' '• Golgotha.' 
^ Who founded University College ? ' ' Alfred.' ' Very 
well, sir, you are competent for your degree.' Through 
whatever form or phantasm of examination the opera- 
tion was conducted, Canninof took his B.A. deo'ree on 
June 22, 1791, proceeding to his Master's degree on 
July 6, 1794. While at Oxford he competed for and 



34 George Canning 

failed in obtaining tlie prize for an English poem on 
the attractive theme of ' The Aboriginal Britons,' suc- 
cumbing to a candidate afterwards known and afterwards 
forgotten as the Rev. Dr. Richards, probably from his 
name himself an aboriginal Briton. Canning's Latin 
poem, *Iter ad Meccam, religionis causa susceptum,' 
won the prize, and was a remarkable iour cle force. It 
was recited by its author on June 26, 1789, the day 
of commemoration, and through the confident graces, 
probably already a little theatrical, but not the less 
effective, of Canning's person and delivery, was ap- 
plauded by a theatre full of auditors little competent to 
appreciate the elegant Latinity and the vivid imagery 
of the composition. According to Wolcot, who almost 
certainly lies, the poem owed a good deal to Dean 
Jackson's revision. He makes Pitt say :— 

For any borough I will bring my man in, 

From Greek-mouthed Belgrave to Lame-Latin Canning. 

Greek-mouthed Belgrave, otherwise called Lord 
Poluphloisboio, was so named from having quoted the 
Greek of Homer in the House of Commons. ' Lame- 
Latin Canning ' is thus annotated : — ' His " Iter ad 
Meccam " for the University prize exhibited such proof 
of ideas and scholarship as put the poor Dean of Christ 
Church to the blush. The first effort was condemned 
to the flames though it obtained the prize, the second 
was a cobbled piece of work between Mr. Canning and 
somebody of Christ Church, which with diflSculty 
passed muster.' ' Lame-Latin Canning ' was the rhe- 
torical antithesis to ' Greek-mouthed Belgrave ' ; and 
the note was probably devised to justify the epithet. 



Mental Training and Recreation 35 

In tlie Homeric poems the arming of tlie lieroes is 
described as fully as their battles, and the education of 
statesmen is their arming for battle. Whatever may 
be thought of its intrinsic and comparative merits, the 
older system of University training was suited to 
Canning's genius and to the career on which he was 
destined to enter. He left Oxford almost ignorant of 
French, absolutely ignorant of most of those things 
which the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge 
and Popular Instructors of various kinds endeavoured 
a generation afterwards to place wdthin the reach of the 
intelligent artisans of the day. Erere gives an account 
of a walk in the woods near Enfield which he took with 
Canning when they were both engaged in public life. 
Canning stopped by the bank of a pool to look at some 
curious creatures which he saw swimming about, and 
asked what they were. Frere told him they were 
called tadpoles, and in course of time they would be- 
come frogs. Canning was amazed. Mr. Frere moralises 
this theme, and points out to a world grown sceptical 
as to the sufficiency of the older learning, as joresentino- 
the exclusive method and topics of education, that here 
was a man who could govern nations and balance 
worlds, and who yet was not aware that tadpoles turned 
into frogs. He probably could have recited pages from 
the ' Battle of the Frogs and the Mice ' aud from ' The 
Frogs ' of Aristophanes, but of the natural history of 
the creatures he knew less than the slouchino- rustic 
of the fields through which he passed. The 'modern 
side ' had not come into existence in Canning's school 
and University days. Ignorance of this kind would, of 
course, be injurious and disgraceful now. It is not that 

D 2 



36 George Canning 

aatural history or physical science in any of its forms 
has any especial relation to statesmanship. The Jesuit, 
Father Pineda, as he is quoted by Horace Walpole, 
asserted that Adam, in his paradisiacal condition, was 
master of all the sciences except ]3olitics, and Adam, 
though he was necessarily the first, was not the last 
man of science in whom this remarkable blending of 
general knowledge and particular ignorance is per- 
ceptible. The habit of precise reasoning from a j^riori 
truths, or from clearly ascertained facts, through irre- 
sistible deductions or crucial experiments, to positive 
conclusions, does not necessarily involve that delicate 
sense of the probable, and that tact in dealing with 
doubtful indications, which are the condition of civil 
prudence, or, in other words, statesmanship. But it is 
essential that a man taking part in affairs should possess 
the general culture and information of his age, that he 
should be familiar with the laws and theories which 
shape its conceptions, colour its language, and furnish 
its illustrations. If Canning lived now he would pro- 
bably have known as much of Darwin as Mr. Gladstone 
or Lord Salisbury does. But whatever may be the 
true method of education in its relation to statesman- 
ship, the special training which Eton and Oxford, Dr. 
Davies and Dean Cyril Jackson, afforded to Canning 
was admirably suited to his genius and to the career 
that lay before him. His great gift — a gift in which, 
perhaps, he has no rival in parliamentary history — 
was his mastery of the art of expression in written and 
spoken language. He possessed in an eminent degree the 
faculty of clear and epigrammatic statement, sentence by 
sentence, and of lucid order in the arrangement of the 



Mental Training and Recreation 37 

greater passages of his speeches, which makes each part 
seem, not merely the best in itself, as it stands alone, 
but perfect in its contribution to a whole yet more 
perfect. Nature had armed him with a weapon keen 
and effective in no ordinary degree. His education and 
accomplishments pointed the barb and winged the shaft. 
A fertile fancy was nourished by the illustrations with 
which a large reading of the great writers of Greece, 
Rome, and England supplied it. A keen wit found the 
material for burlesque and parody in the precedents of 
history and the creations of poetry. 

It is curious that, though Canning lived so much at 
Oxford, it never had that hold on his affections which 
Eton retained to the last. He was tired of it before he 
left it. A premature mannishness was common to him 
with Lord Beaconsfield. The young Disraeli was too 
impatient to mingle with the world, and take part in 
its affairs, to be able to endure the idea of years of 
University pupilage and tutelage. Vivian Grey, when 
it was proposed to him to go to Oxford, ' paced his 
chamber in an agitated spirit and panted for the Senate,' 
for ' to such an individual the idea of Oxford was an in- 
sult.' Canning, it would seem, also paced his chamber in 
an agitated spirit and panted for the Senate, in disgust 
with Oxford, but he wisely did so at Peck water, and 
not in London, and after having put himself in the 
way of getting from Oxford all that it could give 
him. In a letter to Mr. Newton he says that Oxford 
is so completely uncongenial to him in mind and 
body that he dreads returning to it : ' Wallace is gone, 
Western is gone, Newton is gone, and why am I not 
gone ? I expect, however, on my return a small cargo 



38 George Canning 

of Etonians, which will in some measure comfort me 
for the emptiness and unamiableness of the generality 
of the good fellows of whom Christ Church can boast.' 

The names of the three friends whose departure 
from Oxford Canning bew^ails illustrate the diverging 
paths of men whose starting-point is the same. Wallace, 
afterwards Lord Wallace, has an official and parlia- 
mentary association with the fiscal and commercial 
reforms of the first quarter of this century inferior only 
to that of Huskisson. Death extinguished the bright 
promise of Western. Poor Mr. Frank Newton, to 
whom we owe interesting glimpses of Canning in his 
University days, was speedily absorbed in a craze. He 
discovered — taking seriousl}^ the doctrine of a passage 
in Frere's 'Anti-Jacobin' poem on 'The Progress of 
Man ' — that man, in becoming carnivorous, lost health 
and innocence. In 1811 he wrote the first part of a 
treatise, which never had a second, entitled, ' The 
Return to Nature ; or. The Defence of the Vegetarian 
Regimen.' Ten years later he gave to the world a 
little volume entitled, ' Three Enigmas attempted to 
be Explained.' The three enigmas were (1) the Import 
of the Twelve Signs ; (2) the Cause of Ovid's Banish- 
ment ; (3) the Eleusinian Secret. These three enigmas 
are only one enigma, and the key to the enigma is 
vegetarianism. Ovid was banished because, in a passage 
of the ' Metamorphoses,' he had blundered, without 
knowing it, not having been initiated, on the Eleusinian 
secret, which is that the zodiacal signs are an allegorical 
presentation of the truth that man's proper food is 
bread and fruit. 



39 



CHAPTER A^I. 

IX LONDON — INTRODUCTION TO PITT. 

The young Disraeli declined Oxford for an attorney's 
office. The young Canning left Oxford witli a view 
of finding at the bar fortune, independence, and so 
much of a career as would open parliamentary life to 
him. He came to London at the beginning of the year 
1792. He had entered himself five years before as a 
student at Lincoln's Inn, but was never called to the 
bar ; and there is no trace, as the Steward of the Inn 
has courteously ascertained for me, of his ever having 
kept any of his terms. In the last years of his life, 
when he was Prime Minister, he was, as a matter of 
compliment, called to the Bench of his Inn. He be- 
longed to one or more debating societies — such as 
that in Old Bond Street, the ' Crown and Anchor,' 
or the ' Hardwicke.' Canning had left Eton, and 
he may have left Oxford, a Whig of the school of 
Fox and Sheridan. He had taken an active part 
as a schoolboy, in favour of Admiral Keppel against 
the Court candidate, in an election for Windsor ; and 
it was as a Whig, or something more, that he had 
met Jenkinson in the debates of the Christ Church 
Speaking Club. Lord Holland said that at Oxford 
Canning was a furious Jacobin and a hater of the 



40 George Canning 

aristocracy. The change in his political views, which 
was avowed within a few months after his coming to 
London, was perhaps in process of silent and gradual 
accomplishment under the courtly influence of Dean 
Cyril Jackson and the associations of Christ Church. 
A strange story is told by Sir Walter Scott as to the 
manner of Canning's conversion — a story which belongs 
as completely to the region of historical romance as any 
incident of the Waverley novels. In his diary, under 
the date of April 17, 1828, Scott writes: 'Canning's 
conversion from popular opinions was strangely brought 
about. When he was studying in the Temple, and 
rather entertaining revolutionary opinions, Godwin sent 
to say that he was coming to breakfast with him, to 
speak on a subject of the highest importance. Canning 
knew little of him, but received his visit and learned 
to his astonishment that, in expectation of a new order 
of things, the English Jacobins designed to place him. 
Canning, at the head of their revolution. He was 
much struck, and asked time to think what course he 
should take — and having thought the matter over, he 
went to Mr. Pitt and made the anti- Jacobin confession of 
faith.' Scott adds that Canning himself mentioned this 
to Sir W. Knighton on the occasion of his giving a place 
in the Charterhouse of some ten pounds a year to 
Godwin's brother. Godwin's application was made to 
the King through Knighton, and Canning's name does 
not appear in the correspondence in Knighton's 
' Memoirs.' During his life the story was not brought 
up against him. Scott first records it in the year follow- 
ing Canning's death. The fable illustrates the growth of 
myth. A conspicuous phenomenon had to be accounted 



In Loxdox— Ixtroduction to Pitt 41 

for, namely. Canning's transfer of himself from the 
Whig or even revolutionary side to that of Toryism 
and reaction in English politics. The conflict within 
his own mind was dramatically represented in the shape 
of external agencies. In Godwin the revolution was 
personified, in Pitt the resistance ; and they were figured 
as contending in person for the soul of Canning, as 
Satan and the archangel Michael in the Scriptural 
legend contended for the body of Moses. Canning 
represents, it might be said, the youth and the future 
of England — the young England of the close of the 
eighteenth century — and Godwin and Pitt the opposite 
forces, social and political, which struggled for the 
mastery over it, the victory remaining with resistance, 
as typified in Pitt. Canning's mind was at this 
time working itself free from its old associations and 
prepossessions. In a letter to Lord Boringdon, dated 
Paper Buildings, Temple, December 13, 1792, while 
reserving to himself freedom of judgment and action, 
he declares that if he were now in Parliament he should 
take the side of Mr. Pitt. He cannot agree with Fox 
about the French Eevolution. He admits the full risrht 
of every nation to choose the institutions which it 
thinks best for itself, and avows a sort of speculative 
fondness for the idea of a representative republic, but 
the aggressive arrogance of the French and the tyranny 
which they seek to establish over Europe have opened 
his eyes. As usual, a change of view in regard to 
foreign politics affected his mental attitude in home 
questions. Seeing in the various popular associations 
of the day instruments for the propagation of French 
ideas, and in apparently innocent proposals of reform 



42 George Cannlng 

the germ of revolution, lie declares liimself against them. 
The facts leave no place, chronological or moral, for the 
sharp alternative presented in the supposed interview 
with Godwin and Pitt and the sudden choice between 
them. Canning's letter was written towards the close 
of the year 1792. Godwin's ^Enquiry concerning 
Political Justice,' which made him first widely known, 
was not published till the year following, and, except 
as the author of that work, he did not represent 
revolutionary principles in England. The idea that 
Godwin, essentially a man of speculation and not of 
action, meditated a revolutionary outbreak, and that 
he invited a youthful law student to place himself at 
the head of the movement, is absurd. But it is not 
more credible than the supposition that Canning, made 
acquainted with these designs and asked to further them, 
should have kept them to himself, and that he should 
have gone on discoursing to his friend Lord Boringdon 
on the danger of the French principles without breathing 
a word as to the proposals made to him, thus becoming 
an accessory after the fact to seditious and treasonable 
designs. 

The j)eriod which immediately preceded Canning's 
entry into public life may be considered, after that of 
Elizabeth, as the heroic age of English politics. It 
was the era of Chatham, in whom the national spirit 
was reborn. The old struggle with France had been 
fought out on three continents. The help given by 
Chatham to Frederick the Great raised Prussia to the 
rank of a great power, and began that movement of 
events which, more than a century later, called the 
German Empire into existence. The victory of Plassy 



In London — Introduction to Pitt 43 

ensured tliat England, and not France, should liold the 
glorious East in fee, and that the European inflaences 
destined to recreate India should come from our race 
and country. Two years later Wolfe, on the heights 
of Abraham, decided that North America should be 
held by England, or b}^ a republic of the English race. 
The work has stood in Europe, in Asia, and in America, 
in spite of the efforts of the two Napoleons to undo it ; 
and the work was Chatham's. Frederick was the ally, 
Clive and Wolfe the instruments of his policy. His 
was the contriving head, theirs were the armed hands. 
At home Chatham no less embodied the national and 
popular spirit. England ceased to be the creature of 
the Whig families which had ruled it under the first 
tw^o Georges, and a force was called into existence 
which alone was capable of defeating the monarchical 
system which George III. strove to erect on the ruins 
of the power of the great houses and to strengthen 
by the rupture of political connections. The English 
people became England. It is one of the contrasts 
which run through English and French history, that 
the greatness of England abroad, unlike the great- 
ness of France, instead of overshadowing liberties 
at home, stimulated and expanded them. During 
the periods of her European preponderance, under 
Louis XIV. and the Napoleons, France has been abject 
and servile wdthin her ow^n borders. The victories 
by which Chatham made England the ruling power 
in Europe, Asia, and America were contemporary with 
the revival of the national life at home. The foun- 
dations of the industrial and commercial England 
of the present day were laid by the system of internal 



44 George Canmxg 

water communication devised by Brindlej, and by the 
inventions of Hargreaves, Arkwright, and Watt. The 
source of the wealth of nations was expounded by 
Adam Smith almost simultaneously with the invention 
of these mechanical aids to its development. In political 
life the concession of the right of parliamentary re- 
porting gave public opinion indirect but real control 
over public affairs. Parliamentary representation was 
indeed imperfect, but public meetings now first gave 
the nation the means of expressing its mind and pur- 
pose. The great English newspapers had their origin 
at the same time. The right of the constituencies to 
the free choice of their representatives was decided 
in the controversy of the House of Commons with 
Wilkes. The liberties of the subject received new gua- 
rantees in the judicial condemnation of general war- 
rants and in the reversal of Wilkes's outlawry. The 
religious and philanthropic revival (as the names of 
the Wesleys and of Howard testify) was as remark- 
able as that of industry and i^olitics. The younger 
Pitt's accession to office, with its peculiar circum- 
stances, gave a mortal wound, though the thing did 
not at once die, to the principle of government by 
oligarchical combinations, and his enlightened fiscal and 
commercial policy raised the material prosperity of the 
country to the highest point. He meditated, as is well 
known, the complete abolition of all custom duties and 
the establishment of a system of absolute free trade, 
which we have not yet reached, and but for the French 
revolutionary war he might have accomplished his 
design. The national life was raised to its highest 
power when Canning entered Parliament. No one, it 



In London — Introduction to Pitt 45 

might seem, could have a nobler stage or a nobler part 
to play than that which was opened to him. 

A change for the worse was, however, impending. 
It is common to speak of the two Pitts, the elder and 
the younger — Chatham and the second son of Chatham ; 
but practically there are three Pitts of whom history has 
to take account : (1) Chatham, (2) the William Pitt who 
was Prime Minister from 1783 to 1793, and (3) the 
AVilliam Pitt who was Prime Minister from 1793 to 1801, 
and again from 1804 to 1806. The two last, with osten- 
sible personal identity, differed as much from each other 
as any rival statesmen have ever done. The Pitt of 1783 
to 1793 was a sort of Cobden of the eighteenth century 
in office, the disciple of Adam Smith, the projector of 
a scheme of Free Trade more thorough than Peel or 
Gladstone has been able to bring about, the anticipator 
of Grey and Russell in the design at least of parlia- 
mentary reform — a cosmopolitan and international 
statesman in the good sense of the phrase, if ever there 
was one. The Pitt of 1793 to 1806 was simply the 
parody of his more illustrious father — a Chatham 
manque ; the man of peace dressed up in weapons of 
war; hiding in swollen Bombastes and Pistol phrases the 
consuming anxiety fcr peace which never left him till 
the eternal conflict ruined his health and broke his heart ; 
giving by the dignity and ascendency of his personal 
character the semblance of success to measures which 
were but a series of energetic failures. This later and 
less glorious Pitt was the Pitt whom Canning elected 
to follow — the Pitt of decadence and apostacy, not the 
pilot who weathered the storm, but the mariner driven 
helplessly before it, and at best keeping afloat and 



46 George Canning 

from the rocks tlie vessel whicli lie could not bring into 
port. 

At tlie time when Canning looked out from liis 
cliambers on the political world tlie war spirit and 
anti-Frencli spirit were at their height. Canning fully 
shared them, and to him Pitt symbolised them. How 
Canning's acquaintance with Pitt began is not very 
clearly stated ; but it did not require any great political 
research on the part of a Minister anxious to discern 
useful ability to discover Canning. Sheridan had 
already bragged about him in the House of Commons 
as the comins: Wilis: hero. Towards the end of the 
session of 1792, when Jenkinson made his first speech on 
behalf of the Government, Sheridan could not refrain 
from saying that his own party was about to receive a 
great accession in the companion and friend of the 
young orator who had just distinguished himself. 
Canning had been an ' imp of fame ' when he was a lad 
at Eton. Fox is said to have had his eye upon him as 
a parliamentaiy recruit even then. Canning, however, 
had refused a safe Whig seat which had been offered 
him b}' the Duke of Portland. He foresaw the im- 
pending Whig rupture ; and, feeling himself drawn to 
Mr. Pitt, resolved, if he joined him, to do so by his 
own act, and not ' gregariously in a troop ' of political 
deserters. His youthful friendships at Eton and Oxford 
had opened to him the world of society, which was then 
more exclusively than now the world of politics. His 
name and talents were probably as well known to 
Mr. Pitt as to Fox or Sheridan. At any rate, when 
Lord Hawkesbury, the father of Jenkinson, gave a 
dinner-party in order to bring Pitt and Canning 



In Loxdox — Introduction to Pitt 47 

togetlier, it was found that tiiey had abeady made 
acquaintance. Hookham Frere, in his old age, fancied 
that he, through an anonymous lord, had been the 
means of making them known to each other. Lady 
Hester Stanhope describes the first meeting of Pitt 
and Canning. ' The first time,' she said, ' he (Mr. 
Canning) was introduced to Mr. Pitt, a great deal 
of prosing had been made beforehand of his talents, 
and when he had gone Mr. Pitt asked me what I 
thought of him. I said I did not like him ; for his 
forehead was bad, his eyebrows were bad, he was ill 
made about the hips, but his teeth were evenly set, 
though he rarely showed them. I did not like his 
conversation. Mr. Canning heard of this, and some- 
time after, when upon a more familiar footing with me, 
said : '' So, Lady Hester, you don't like me ?" " No," 
said I, '' they told me you were handsome, and I don't 
think you so." ' Probably there was something of 
feminine jealousy in this aversion. She found in 
Canning a rival in the affections of her uncle, whom 
Lord Malmesbury speaks of as ' nursing him in the 
hothouse of his partiality and engouemeiit, for it 
amounted to that.' 

Canning's conversation with Pitt, however it was 
brought about, had its natural result. A place in Par- 
liament was soon found for the young convert. Sir 
Pichard Worsley resigned his seat for Newtown, in the 
Isle of Wight, and Mr. Canning presented himself to 
the electors with the conge d'elire which then scarcely 
implied more freedom of choice in political than it now 
does in ecclesiastical matters. 



48 George Canning 



CHAPTER VII. 

IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 

When Canning entered the House of Commons in 1793 
the chair was occupied by Mr. Addington, who in 1789 
had succeeded Mr. (afterwards Lord) Grenville on the 
appointment of that statesman to a Secretaryship of 
State. He remained Speaker until he became Prime 
Minister in 1801. Canning ridiculed his airs and 
graces in the chair — 

When with gait consequential and dignified pace 
You were strutting behind little C 's mace ; 

When you moved to the chair 

With so stately an air ; 
When your looks were so solemn, important and dull, 
When your gown was so ample, your wig was so full ; 
With what rapture we owned, as the farce Ave surveyed, 
That the Chair and the Speaker of one block were made. 

Canning's contempt was inspired by a retrospective 
animosity. Supported by the immense authority of 
Pitt, Addington filled the chair respectably if not with 
distinction, and as the usage of those times permitted, 
he repaid Pitt's patronage by occasional aid in debate. 
On the Treasury Bench, at the right hand of the 
Speaker, the Cabinet was represented by Pitt himself, 



In the House of Commons 49 

by Duudas, who combined the offices of Secretary of 
State and Treasurer of the Navy, and by Windham, 
Avho, as a Portland Whig, had taken the post of Secre- 
tary at War. The House of Lords at that time, and 
long afterwards, had a preponderance amounting almost 
to a monopoly of Cabinet offices. George Rose and 
Charles Long were Secretaries of the Treasury, Jenkin- 
son was one of the Commissioners of the India Board, 
and Huskisson was Under Secretary for the Colonies 
and War. Lord Mornington was a Junior Lord of the 
Treasury. The magisterial eloquence of Pitt commanded 
the House with an authority which probably no one before 
or since has ever exercised over it. He did not brow- 
beat it like his father, nor show his power, as subse- 
quent Ministers have done, by controlling the storms 
which they have raised. His authority was equal and 
constant. He was jDOwerfully seconded by Dundas, 
probably as great a master of official and parliamentary 
business of all kinds and of businesslike speaking as the 
House has ever seen. His broad Scotch accent, ridiculed 
in ' The llolliad ' and in ' The Pursuits of Literature,' 
made his shrewdness seem yet more shrewd, and in 
spite of George III. he was as innocent of Scotch meta- 
physics as Joseph Hume himself. Windham, uniting 
the prejudices of a Squire Western with the chivalry 
of a Bayard and the paradoxical ingenuity of a Greek 
sophist, was probably as much of an embarrassment as 
an assistance. His brilliant wit and perverse origin- 
ality were ornaments of debate, but discomfited his 
allies and colleagues as often as his antagonists. The 
subordinate Ministers were not capable of giving much 
aid. Huskisson, a clear thinker, was at that time and 

E 



50 George Canning 

for long after an embarrassed talker, and his ungainly 
manner and provincial accent displeased the eye and 
ear of the House. In Jenkinson, afterwards ' the pink- 
nosed Liverpool ' of Cobbett, ' the arch mediocrity ' of 
Disraeli, disorder and want of method seem to have 
been hereditary. Lady Hester Stanhope describes his 
father, the first Lord Liverpool, as always looking for 
documents which he could not find. ^ He used to ram 
his hands into his pockets, first on one side and then 
on the other, searching for some paper just as if he 
were groping for an eel at the bottom of a pond.' 
George III. noticed in the son an absence of method 
and of a head for business. A disorderly fulness of in- 
formation, an amplitude of ill-assorted knowledge, and 
a too modest and yielding temper, made Jenkinson in- 
effective. The animated rhetoric of Lord Mornington 
seemed to seek mental vivacity in vivacious gesture. 
George Kose had an easy murmuring talk and a 
mastery of usage and precedents. Charles Long, who 
afterwards bore the title of Lord Farnborough, worn 
for too short a time by the late Sir Thomas Erskine 
May, is described by Lord Brougham as ' the most 
experienced and correct observer of all the parlia- 
mentary men of his time.' Against this respectable 
array were ranged the stormy force of Fox, carrying 
away at once the convictions and feelings of his hearers 
in a tempest of reasoned passion ; the manly dignity 
of Grey ; the elaborate Avit and the somewhat harlequin 
glitter of Sheridan ; the easy colloquial sarcasm, the 
pointed argument and the business knowledge of 
Tierney; the courtly dignity and facile utterance of 
Burdett, most aristocratic of demagogues and most 



In the House of Commons 51 

simple-mincled of charlatans ; the generous eloquence 
of Erskine, which lost much, though not everything, in 
being transported from the Bar to Parliament ; the 
somewhat pompous and egotistic but impressive good 
sense and integrity of Whitbread. It is not strange 
that Pitt should have sought a recruit in Canning, 
whose powers of continuous argument, illumined by 
wit and fancy, from the first gave promise of what he 
afterwards became, when the flippancy, occasionally 
verging on impertinence, and the scholarship, a little 
too pedantically displayed, of the Christ Church Speaking 
Club were in some degree softened down to the temper 
of an assembly of men of business. 

Canning was not in a hurry to speak. He held his 
tongue during his first session, devoting himself to the 
study of the House, its ways and temper. He allowed 
expectation to gather. Fanny Burney indicates the im- 
patience and disappointment with which this tardiness 
was regarded by Canning's eager friends, and the grati- 
fication w^th which his maiden speech, on January 31, 
1794, was hailed. But while the hearers were delighted, 
the performer was undergoing alternations of bliss and 
torture. In a letter written some weeks later to Lord 
Boringdon (March 20) he sa^^s : — 

I intended to have told you, at full length, what my 
feelings were at getting up, and being pointed at by the 
Speaker, and hearing my name called from all sides of the 
House ; how I trembled lest I should hesitate or misplace 
a word in the two or three first sentences, while all was 
dead silence around me, and my own voice sounded to my 
ears quite like some other gentleman's ; how in about ten 
minutes or less I got warmed in collision with Fox's argu- 

E 2 



52 George Canning 

ments, and did not even care twopence for anybody or 
anything ; how I was roused in about half an hour from 
this pleasing state of self-sufficiency by accidentally casting 
my eyes towards the Opposition Bench, for the purpose of 
paying compliments to Fox, and assuring him of my respect 
and admiration, and there seeing certain members of Oppo- 
sition laughing (as I thought) and quizzing me ; how this 
accident abashed me, and together with my being out of 
breath, rendered me incapable of uttering ; how those who 
sat below me on the Treasury Bench, seeing what it was 
that distressed me, cheered loudly, and the House joined 
them ; and how in less than a minute, straining every nerve 
in my body, and plucking up every bit of resolution in my 
heart, I went on more boldly than ever, and getting into 
a part of my subject that I liked, and having the House 
with me, got happily and triumphantly to the end. 

Canning had not completed his twenty-fourth year 
when he made his first speech. The occasion of it was 
Mr. Pitt's motion for a subsidy to the King of Sardinia. 
Events had been moving fast. The session of 1793 
had been a busy and exciting one. It witnessed Pitt's 
formal renunciation of the doctrine of Parliamentary 
Reform, of which twice before he had submitted large 
projects to the House. The Traitorous Correspondence 
Bill, and similar measures, suspended the guarantees of 
freedom in England. In France the Revolutionary 
Tribunal and the Committee of Public Safety were 
established. The two nations sacrificed their domestic 
liberties to reciprocal hate and fear. 

In the course of the session 1794 Canning made 
two other speeches, which are not recorded with any 
minuteness in the ' Parliament Debates,' and which he 
did not print. One of them was on Major Maitland's 



In the House of Commons 53 

motion for an inquiry into the causes of the failure of 
the expedition to Dunkirk and on the evacuation of 
Toulon, and another in defence of the suspension of the 
Habeas Corpus Act. 

He vindicated Pitt's abandonment of parliamentary 
reform against the attack of Mr. Grey on the ground of 
inopportuneness. Canning carried his new anti-Whig 
feeling so far as to view with distrust the admission 
into the Government of the Whig leaders who were 
under the influence of Burke — the Duke of Portland, 
Mr. Windham, Lord Spencer, and Lord Fitzwilliam, 
who, giving up the Lord Presidency, went to Ireland as 
Lord Lieutenant, and to whose recall next year the 
subsequent Irish troubles are in some degree traceable. 

Parliament, after prorogation, met again on Decem- 
ber 13, 1794. Mr. Canning was chosen to second the 
address in reply to the speech from the Throne. In 
March, 1795, Mr. Fox, in a speech of historic fame, 
moved for a Committee on the State of the Nation, 
and especially the condition of Ireland. Canning spoke 
in the debate, following Sheridan. An exaggerated air 
of mature sagacity marks Canning's earlier speeches. 
In a debating society manner he protests against intro- 
ducing a debating society into the House of Commons. 
It is enough to note these youthful exercises. 



54 George Canning 



CHAPTER VIII. 

AT THE FOREIGN OFFICE. 

Canning had entered Parliament with a view to office, 
and office was near at hand. After some delays and 
doubts, the nature and cause of which do not very 
explicitly appear, he was appointed, in the spring of 
1796, Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in 
succession to Mr. Thomas Aust, now known to man- 
kind only as Canning's predecessor. Fox, who at this 
time had a very angry feeling towards Canning, which 
he expressed in his letters to Lord Holland, ungene- 
rously attacked the appointment as a job substituting 
an incompetent for a competent person. Soon after- 
wards Canning accepted the post of Receiver-General 
of the Alienation Office, with a salary of 700?. a year 
— a sinecure the nominal duties of which were the 
reception of fines levied upon writs of covenants and 
entries. 

In May, 1796, the approaching expiration of the 
septennial term brought about a dissolution of Parlia- 
ment. Canning, leaving Newtown, offered himself as 
a candidate for Wendover ; both boroughs were after- 
wards victims of the Reform Act of 1832. For 
Wendover he sat in conjunction with Mr. John Hiley 
Addington, destined to a place in human memory 



At the Foreign Oeeice 55 

as the clieering ' Brother Hiley ' of one of Canning's 
anti-Addingtonian squibs. During the next two years 
Canning took little part in debate. He was absorbed 
in the work of his office, patiently bearing the deten- 
tion in town and the seclusion from society which it 
involved, for which, he said, the happiness of constant 
occupation and the satisfaction of seeing a great deal 
of himself were more than a compensation. Next to 
this improving intercourse he valued his opportunities 
of being with Mr. Pitt, who, though not so close a 
prisoner as Canning, never left town without giving 
him a map of his movements. Canning saw much of 
him at Holwood, and never left him without a warmer 
love and admiration. ' I wonder,' Canning writes from 
the Foreign Office, ' what sort of times those must have 
been when there were no armies to watch, no conflicts 
to apprehend, and Europe had no fate depending.' 

The life of Canning is essentially that of a politician, 
and to narrate fully his first thirteen years in Parlia- 
ment and office w^ould be to trace the course of history 
through the first Administration of Mr. Pitt, that of 
Addington, Pitt's second Administration, and that of 
Grenville and Fox. It is the history of unsuccessful 
war and equally unsuccessful negotiations with France ; 
of coalitions and the rupture of coalitions ; of the Direc- 
tory, the First Consulate, and the Empire ; of the ' ex- 
perimental peace ' of Amiens and of the renewal of the 
war. Canning's connection with these events is almost 
that of any other subordinate member of the Government 
— of Jenkinson or Huskisson. It was not until he became 
Foreign Minister in the Portland Administration of 1807 
that he began to play an independent and original part 



56 George Canning 

in public affairs. His intimate personal relations with 
Pitt and witli Lord Malmesbury, the diplomatist of the 
Pitt Government, and his official connection with Lord 
Grenville, brought him into nearer view of the great 
events of the time than was possible to any other per- 
son not a member of the Cabinet; but the part he 
plaj^ed was that of an instrument, and not of an agent, 
still less of a principal. He was very busy in the 
second negotiations for peace which were conducted by 
Lord Malmesbury at Lisle. There was a peace party 
and a war party in the Cabinet. Pitt was at tJie head 
of the former ; Grenville, his Foreign Secretary, of the 
other. Malmesbury, nominally instructed by Grenville, 
was really directed by Pitt ; and Canning in the Foreign 
Office, and George Ellis — Pitt's former assailant in ^ The 
Eolliad,' but now his devoted follower — at Lisle were 
the subterranean channels of these secret communica- 
tions. Pitt used the newspapers against Grenville, and 
Grenville forced a resolution of secrecy on the Cabinet, 
expressly intended. Canning says, to tie up Pitt's 
tongue. Probably Canning was the intermediary 
between Pitt and the press, for he was suspected of 
using his official position for stock-jobbing purposes, 
and he had to enforce a retractation from Mr. Perry, of 
the ' Morning Chronicle,' by the threat of an action for 
libel. 

While Pitt and Grenville were at variance with 
each other, they conspired to keep the rest of their 
colleagues in the dark. Lord Malmesbury had to write 
a double set of despatches, one to mystify the Cabinet 
at large, the other to inform the Prime Minister and 
Foreign Secretary. Important despatches which could 



At the Foreign Office 57 

not be kept back were so copied out as to be nearly 
illegible. Pitt and Malmesburj, through Canning and 
Ellis, adopted the device of 'most private letters,' of 
which Canning speaks as a most admirable invention, 
which he hopes will be kept ujd to the end of the nego- 
tiations for the purposes for which it was designed. In 
this private correspondence, Malmesbury, from his long 
white mane and fine eyes, was called ' The Old Lion ; ' 
Le Tourneur, one of the French negotiators, was ' Sir 
Gregory,' in honour, no doubt, of Sir Gregory Turner ; 
Maret was ' William ; ' Talleyrand ' Edward.' Mysterious 
messengers from Lisle came to Spring Gardens, where 
Canning lived, found their way to the back of the 
house, stealthily passed the bow windows, roused 
Canning, and had conspiratorlike interviews with him 
in the garden. At Lisle Lord Malmesbury established 
a system of signals with M. Maret, one of the plenipoten- 
tiaries. Assent or compliance was expressed by Maret 's 
taking his handkerchief out of one ^Docket, passing it 
before his face, and returning it into the other pocket. 
It was really a question of purchase and sale. Talley- 
rand and Barras insisted on payment in advance, 
which Pitt refused, for concessions which they were 
prepared to secure. Ultimately, however, the French, 
while demanding the cession of English conquests, 
refused any corresponding surrender on their own part. 
Lord Malmesbury received his passports and the war 
went on. 

Canning had for some time been discontented with 
his position in the Foreign Office. He was serving two 
masters, hating the one and cleaving to the other. 
Grenville was the most haughty and frigid of Whigs, 



58 George Canning 

painfully conscious, as lie himself avowed, of liis inability 
to manage men and adapt himself to them, and it was 
strange that they were able to go on together, as they 
did, nearly two years longer. 

In 1799 Canning became one of the twelve com- 
missioners of India, a post of less importance, whatever 
its titular rank, than that which he had quitted. He 
felt, naturally enough, that his abilities and services 
justified his aspiring to a higher place in the Adminis- 
tration. Towards the close of 1799 there was some 
talk of Dundas, w^ho united the office of Secretary of 
State with that of Treasurer of the Navy, giving up the 
former post. Canning did not desire this office until 
he should ' grow bigger.' He feared to shock the public. 
Still he avows himself discontented with his position of 
work without distinction, and with liability to have the 
results of long labours overthrown by a speech or canvass 
of Lord Westmoreland's, the ' Sot ' (Sceau) ' Prive' (Privy 
Seal) as he was accustomed to call him. As to his age 
— he was twenty-nine — he points to the examples of 
Castlereagh, now for two years Minister of Ireland; 
Addington, who was made Speaker at thirty ; Lord 
Grenville, before that age Speaker and Secretary of 
State. Pitt he will not quote ; he is a ' monster of 
talent.' But he protests against exclusion being 
practised against himself which is not put in force 
against others. 

If joeace is concluded, the present functions of the 
Third Secretary of State (War) will, he j^oints out, in 
a great measure cease. But the public service requires 
that the number of respectable and efficient House of 
Commons offices should not be diminished, and the need 



At the Foreign Office 59 

of reviewing the establisliments will be urgent. ' Do 
you imagine tliat tlie Home Secretary (sucli as he is at 
present) ' — such as he was then he was the Duke of 
Portland — ' would be sufficient assistance to Pitt in a 
revision of this sort ? ' Canning thinks the Home 
Secretary ought to have Irish business in his hands, 
which, after the Union shall have been made, must be 
done in England. 

Peace, however, was not made during Pitt's Ad- 
ministration. The Duke of Portland remained Home 
Secretary, and Dundas War Secretary, while the 
Treasurership of the Navy, which Canning desired, was 
given in May, 1800, to Dudley Eyder, afterwards Lord 
Harrowby. Canning became one of the Joint Pay- 
masters of the Forces, an office which he held until 
Mr. Pitt's retirement and Mr. Addington's accession to 
the Premiership in 1801. During this period Mr. Can- 
ning spoke against peace with France, against the 
Slave Trade, and in favour of the union with Ireland. 
He urged that a separate Parliament, whatever limita- 
tions might be imposed on it at first, must ultimately 
be an independent Parliament, and that an independent 
Parliament meant national separation and the conver- 
sion of Ireland into a hostile republic under the pro- 
tection of France. He varied these graver performances 
by a speech in favour of bull-baiting — a sort of playing 
at being Mr. "Windham, which would scarcely have been 
more incongruous in Mr. Wilberforce himself. 



6o George Canning 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE 'ANTI-JACOBIN.' 

The return of Lord Malmesbury from Lisle, and the 
substitution of war for diplomacy, left, it may be assumed, 
a good deal of time on the hands of the youth of 
the Foreign Office and other departments of State, 
Hostilities were renewed with the pen as well as with 
the sword. Lord Malmesbury received his passports 
on September 18,1797. The first number of ' The Anti- 
Jacobin, or AVeekly Examiner, to be continued every 
Monday during the sitting of Parliament,' was published 
on November 20, 1797. It continued in existence 
without interruption until Monday, July 9, 1798, when 
the session of Parliament ended and the final number 
was issued. The conductors of the ' Anti-Jacobin ' 
were better than their word, for they published a 
supplementary number on Monday, November, 1797, 
and two numbers on Monday, July 2, 1798. The 
paper consisted of eight pages quarto, double columns, 
and was sold for sixpence. The writers appear to have 
held conferences, for the purpose of talking over their 
future numbers, at the house of Lord Malmesbury. 
' The Old Lion ' had a court of his own at which the 
young lions met. In other words, Lord Malmesbury 



The ' a NT I- Jacobin' 6i 

had tlie valuable faculty of attracting the younger men 
of his party about him, quickening himself by their 
impulses and guiding them by his experience. On 
Sunday, the day before publication, the Anti-Jacobins 
foregathered at the house of Wright the publisher, 
'No. 169, opposite Old Bond Street, Piccadilly,' where 
they had secured an editorial room, which they entered 
mysteriously by a door in another house, as ostenta- 
tiously avoiding notice as when some of them had 
donned the brown livery of the Christ Church Speaking 
Club. According to Croker, Canning could not take 
a cup of tea without a stratagem ; and there was a 
good deal of the play-actor about his proceedings at 
this time. The conspirators in' the ' Kovers ' seem to 
have been the model of some of his doings. Whether 
through their elaborate precautions to avoid detection, 
or through courting notoriety, the writers in the ' Anti- 
Jacobin ' failed to keep their secret. ' The youths 
whom Malmesbury chose ' are signalised with a 
Homeric simplicity of epithet in the ' Epistle to the 
Editors of the '' Anti- Jacobin," ' written by William 
Lamb, afterwards Lord Melbourne, at this time a 
lad of nineteen, and published in the 'Morning 
Chronicle ' of January 17, 1798. 'Ellis's sapient pro- 
minence of nose ; ' ' Morpeth's gait, important, proud, 
and big ; ' and ' Leveson-Gower's crop-imitating wig,' 
are commemorated. Their mutual puffery is gently 
ridiculed. ' Consequential Morpeth nods applause ; ' 
' In every fair one's ears at balls and plays, the gentle 
Leveson-Gower whispers praise.' The editorship of the 
' Anti-Jacobin ' was generally attributed to Canning : — 



62 George Canning 

The skill 
Of youthful Canning guides the ranc'rous quill ; 
With powers mechanic, far above his age, 
Adapts the paragraph and fills the page. 
Measures the column, mends whate'er's amiss, 
Rejects that letter, and accepts of this. 

Canning's was undoubtedly the directing and in- 
spiring mind of the ' Anti-Jacobin ; ' but the editor 
was William Gifford, the poet of the ' Baviad ' and the 
' Mseviadj' and afterwards the editor of the ' Quarterly 
Review.' The chief associates of Canning in the 
' Anti-Jacobin ' were George Ellis, the converted Anti- 
Pittite of the ' Rolliad,' one of the members of Lord 
Malmesbury's suite at Lisle, now remembered for his 
works on early English literature ; and Hookham Frere. 
Other contributors were, or were supposed to be, Pitt, 
Jenkinson, ' Brother Bragge ' and ' Brother Hiley,' 
Morpeth, Hammond, Baron Macdonald, and Mornington 
(afterwards Marquis Welle sley). The assignment of pieces 
to the several authors is made with great confidence by 
Mr. Charles Edmonds in his ' Poetry of the '' Anti- 
Jacobin," ' but it seems to rest on second-hand and, in 
itself, not very conclusive testimony. It appears, however, 
tolerably certain that Canning wrote the prospectus ; that 
he contributed two lines to the ' Loves of the Triangles,' 
of which Frere was otherwise the sole author ; that he 
was the exclusive writer of the second and third parts 
of that poem, of the ' Friend of Humanity and the 
Knife Grinder,' of the 'Inscription for the Door of 
the Cell of Mrs. Brownrigg, the Trenticide,' of the 
second and third parts of ' The Progress of Man,' of 
^ The New Morality,' and of the lines in reply to the 



The ' Anti- Jacobin' 63 

^ Epistle to tlie Editors of the '' An ti- Jacobin." ' The 
play of ' The Rovers ; or, The Double Arrangement,' was 
a composite work in which Ellis and Frere had a part. 
The first five stanzas of the ^ Song of ' Rogero ' are 
assigned by Mr. Edmonds to Canning, the last to Pitt. 
The 'Edinburgh Review' attributes to Canning the 
speech of Erskine in the burlesque report of the meeting 
of the Friends of Freedom to commemorate the 18th 
of Fructidor. A ' Quarterly Reviewer,' on the other 
hand, states as from certain knowledge that this per- 
fect sample of keen yet good-humoured badinage was 
from beginning to end the work of Hookham Frere. 

The poetry of the ' Anti- Jacobin ' is too well known to 
make it necessary, even if space allowed, to quote it here. 
' The New Morality,' to which, with the exception 
of a few lines attributed to Pitt, Canning has an ex- 
clusive title, is his most serious if not his happiest 
contribution, and exhibits the temper by which, even 
in their lightest moods, he and his associates were 
animated. It is true moral satire — the satire not 
merely of personality and badinage, of defamation and 
ampoon, nor even the satire which attacks tendencies 
and opinions through persons, but that which is in- 
spired by the sense of contrast between the professions 
and the practice of men, between the semblance and 
the reality of virtue, between the age in which we live 
and the better ages which are assumed to have preceded 
it. The lines in which the false virtues that ape the 
realities of benevolence, sensibility, justice, and candour, 
are denounced, and traced to ' that parent of ten thou- 
sand crimes, the new philosophy of modern times,' 
have become the commonplaces of the second-hand 



64 George Caxxing 

satire of orators wlio steal tlieir art ready made. The 
parody of the Benedicite was cited by Hone on liis trial 
in justification of liis parody of the Lord's Prayer : — 

' Couriers ' and ' Stars,' sedition's evening host, 
Thou ' Morning Chronicle ' and ' Morning Post ! ' 
Whether ye make the rights of man your theme, 
Your country libel, and your God blaspheme ; 
Or dirt on private worth and virtue throw, 
Still, blasphemous or blackguard, praise Lepaux. 

And ye, five other wandering bards that move 
In sweet accord of harmony and love ; 
Coleridge and Southey, Lloyd, and Lamb k Co. 
Tune all your mystic harps to praise Lepaux ; 
Priestley and Wakefield, humble holy men. 
Give praises to his name with tongue and pen ; 
Thelwall, and ye that lecture as ye go, 
And for your pains get pelted, praise Lepaux. 

Praise him each Jacobin, or fool or knave, 

And your cropped heads in sign of worshij) wave. 

All creeping creatures, venomous and low, 

Paine, Williams, Godwin, Holcroft — praise Lepaux ! 

La Reveillere Lepaux had the double claim to 
Canning's hatred of being one of ' the three scoundrelly 
directors ' who had made peace impossible at Lisle, and 
the High Priest of the Theophilanthropic sect — a sort 
of Deistic anticipation of M. Comte's ritualistic religion 
of humanity — which had opened four temples in Paris 
and worshipped the Supreme Being with a liturgical 
service of chants and flowers. 

It is impossible to approve the taste and feeling of 
some of these lines, which mix up in indiscriminate 
censure men of character with men whose leading 



The ' AxTi-jAcoEfN' 65 

qualities can scarcely be described in these terms, and 
wliicli coarsely appeal to prejudice and hatred. But to 
discriminate was, in Canning's view, to be guilty of the 
treacherous and unmanly vice of candour. Coleridge, 
even when he came to be on Canning's side, did not 
forgive this attack, although he reserved his indignation 
mainly for the inclusion of poor Lamb in a company 
with which politically he had nothing in common, being 
connected with the Jacobin bards, as they then were, 
only by the ties of poetry and friendship. But war is 
war, in politics as in arms ; and Canning was the last 
man to blunt the weapons of personal satire and in- 
vective, which none could use so effectively as he. The 
taste of the times and the Whig precedent of the 
' Rolliad,' the ' Probationary Odes,' and the ' Political 
Eclogues,' some few years earlier, and of Tom Moore 
some years later, justified him, so far as an example 
set and an example followed can do so. 

' The New Morality ' has something of the vigour 
of Dryden, something of the polish of Pope, and, in 
spite of its passionate prejudices and personal animo- 
sities, something of the sound moral feeling of Cowper. 
The place of the poetry of the ' Anti-Jacobin ' amongst 
English political satires has been unduly lowered. It 
has been described as inferior to the ' Rolliad ' and to 
the political verses of Tom Moore, which it is the fashion 
to call his best performance. There is, indeed, about 
the ' Rolliad,' with which for this purpose the other 
works of the same writers, the ' Probationary Odes ' and 
the ' Political Eclogues,' may be associated, a rollicking 
vigour, a masculine force, a broad humour, and, with all 
their coarseness, a sort of ^ood humour which the ' Anti- 

F 



66 George Canning 

Jacobin ' lacks. The writers are not professional jokers, 
tliey are country gentlemen who happen also to be 
scholars and wits. Even when they misconduct them- 
selves, they are gentlemen misconducting themselves. 
Their very grossness has an air of good manners and 
distinction about it. Moore, on the other hand, is the 
man of letters lending himself to the purposes of his 
patrons. The bookseller and the cheque from the news- 
paper office are always in view. He has unexampled 
grace, ease and vivacity, and copiousness of fancy and wit. 
But neither in the writers of the ' Eolliad ' nor in Moore 
is there any belief. They have no cause ; they are pure 
partisans ; their satire is almost entirely personal. 
The ' Eolliad ' and the other poems of its authors were 
written in vindication of the discreditable coalition 
between Fox and North. They attacked the Minis- 
try of Pitt, which, apart from the circumstances of its 
origin — and these have since found constitutional vin- 
dicators upon the highest democratic theories — was, 
since Lord Chatham's and before the war with France, 
the most sagacious and patriotic that England saw until 
Lord Grey's, or at any rate until Mr. Canning's accession 
to power half a century later. The ' Eolliad ' had, 
necessarily, no political principle to vindicate. Moore 
assailed the Prince Eegent and his Tory Ministers as 
the ' Eolliad ' people assailed George III., Mr. Pitt and 
his colleagues. He did not, save in the use of a few 
party cries, go much beyond personal badinage. The 
writers of the ' Anti- Jacobin,' though they were personal 
enough, and sometimes were as wantonly personal as 
Fitzpatrick or Moore, had a doctrine which they up- 
held and a doctrine which they attacked. They had a 



The 'Anti-Jacobin' 6y 

scheme of politics and of morals, views of art, literature, 
and philosophy, of which they were the nnflinching 
champions. Against the abstract principles of the 
French thinkers, the humanitarian and cosmopolitan en- 
thusiasm of the earlier poetry of Coleridge and Southey, 
they set up a morality which is based on habits and 
usage; against the rights of man, the rights which 
depend on laws and institutions ; against theophilan- 
thropy, the Christian religion ; against the Croddess of 
Keason, the Established Church. They believed that 
man is the creature of organised society ; that he be- 
longs to his own nation and to its institutions ; and that 
to strip him of these things is to unclothe him and leave 
him naked, to expose him, wounded and bleeding. 
Canning and his friends hated the jargon of cause and 
principle and system ; they thought it French ; but 
nevertheless they had a cause, a principle, and a system ; 
and this fact gives to the satire of the ' Anti- Jacobin ' 
a place in English satire of a higher character than can 
be claimed for the WTiters with whom its authors are 
sometimes put in disadvantageous contrast. They were 
bent on amending the doctrines and manners of their 
time ; bent on restoring sagacity to politics, good sense 
to literature, morality to the stage, sobriety to specula- 
tion. They had principles and a doctrine, and they 
applied those principles and that doctrine all round, in 
correction of French principles in politics, of false taste 
in letters, of wild speculation of the Payne and Erasmus 
Darwin school in social philosophy and science, of senti- 
mental theophilanthropy or blank atheism in religion, 
of German licence on the stage. The ^ Anti-Jacobin ' 
represented a counter-reaction against an exaggerated 

F 2 



6S George Canning 

reaction. The gross abuses of custom and inheritance 
which the French revolution had swept away had 
led to a movement against all that was established and 
hereditary. 

In protesting against the extravagances of cosmo- 
politan and humanitarian sentiment, and of individual 
licence, Canning fell into something like a worship of 
national prejudices and antipathies, of political abuses 
and ecclesiastical and social tyrannies. He did not 
make enough account, because his antagonists had 
m^de too much, of personal freedom, and of that sense 
of a common humanity which is the basis of national 
differences. His literary judgments rested no less on 
national sentiment, in this case inspired by good sense. 
He objected to the Latinised style of Junius and 
Johnson for the reason which made him ridicule the 
spondaics and dactylics of Southey and Coleridge. In 
English prose and verse the structure of the sentences 
and the metrical forms should be English. As Dr. 
Johnson said, criticising Hume's Gallicisms of style, 
the French structure may be as good as the English 
structure, but it is not English : ' My name might 
originally have been Nicholson as well as Johnson, but 
if you were to call me Nicholson now you would call 
me very absurdly.' 



69 



CHAPTER X. 

DOMESTIC RELATIONS. 

While Canning was taking part in the schoolboy 
parliament of Eton and the speaking club at Christ 
Church, lionising at Blenheim and Saltram, and earn- 
ing renown in St. Stephen's and Downing Street, his 
mother was wandering over the country as a strolling 
actress. After the death of Reddish she had married 
a stage-struck silk mercer at Plymouth, named Hunn, 
who, failing in business, essayed the boards at Exeter 
and was damned. A situation was obtained for him 
in a merchant's office in London ; but he too died, 
leaving Canning's mother for the third time a widow, 
with three children — two girls and a boy — dependent on 
her. Canning's affectionate devotion to her through life 
was unfailing. He wrote to her fully and regularly, 
he missed no opportunity of seeing her. The story of 
his having settled his pension upon her appears to be 
unfounded. I can find neither his name nor hers on 
any pension list. He enabled her, however, to with- 
draw from the stage. She took up her residence first 
at Winchester and afterwards aj Bath, where she re- 
mained until 1827, the year of her own and of her son's 
death. The fact that Canning's mother had been on 
the stage, and was supposed to have a pension, was not 



70 George Canning 

likely to escape tlie notice of tbe lampooners and 
libellers of the time. It saved tliem the necessity of 
simply lying ; they had, in part at least, only to exag- 
gerate. Wolcot (' Peter Pindar ') was especially per- 
tinacious and malignant. ' GifFord,' he makes Pitt 
say :— 

Gifford, that crooked babe of grace, 
And Canning, too, shall be in place, 
And get a pension for his mother. 

Again : — 

' I must have something,' Canning cries. 
And fastens on some rich mincepies, 

As dextrous as the rest to rifle ; 
Ecod, and he must something do 
For mother and for sisters too, 

So steals some syllabubs and trifle. 

On July 8, 1800, Canning married Miss Joan Scott, 
the daughter and co-heiress of General Scott, who had 
made a fortune in India and at the gaming-table. 
He left 100,000/. to each of his daughters, with the 
strange provision, for an Englishman, that if either of 
them married a nobleman her fortune should go to 
the other. The elder sister married the Marquis of 
Tichfield, the son of the Duke of Portland ; but the 
younger, who became Mrs. Canning, generously refused 
to take advantage of her father's will, and insisted on 
the fortune remaining divided. We have to consider 
the political morality of the times, which, however, 
except in the limitation of opportunities, does not per- 
haps differ much from our own, in estimating the 
fact that when the marriage by which he was enriched 
took place — certainly when it was arranged — Canning, 



Domestic Relations yi 

tliougli tlie pension story seems to be a pure fabri- 
cation, had and kept a sinecure as Receiver in the 
Alienation Office. Wolcot did not fail to magnify 
the received fiction, and to burthen the pension list 
with a perfect army of imaginary half-brothers and 
half-sisters of Canning. In the letter of Mr. Joseph 
Budge on the Middlesex election, written congenially 
in the Devonshire dialect to Lord Rolle, whose accent 

Ss^ovi^st—is commemorated in the ' Rolliad,' this 

growth of calumnious fable is exhibited : — 

And then one Canning, a poor boy, 
Took from a school to his (Pitt's) employ, 

Once thoft a huge deep thinker. 
He, like a very duteous son, 
Got nice tid-bits for mother Hun, 

And brother Tim, the tinker. 

And zister Peg, and zister Joan, 
With scarce a flannel dicky on, 

As ever I can larn ; 
Broken-down actresses, they zay, 
That in the country used to play 

Vor herrings in a barn. 

Now though this curious young man got, 
A hundred thousand with Miss Scott, 

(Egad ! a fortune thumping !) 
Behold, a hadn't got the heart 
To give his family a peart, 

Zo zend mun out a mumping. 

In another piece of rhymed and metrical scurrility 
the libeller says : — 



72 George Canning 

I met mother Hun in the park, 

The dam of our great Master Canning, 

Forth flying as brisk as a lark, 

With her daughters perspiring and fanning. 

' You've heard of the marriage, I guess ; 

Nice match, oh, a very nice match ; 
Half a million of money, not less. 

Oh, Lord ! 'twas a beautiful catch. 

* Yet how mortally proud they will be; 

Three days, sir, before the grand wedding. 
Bundled off were my daughters and me, 

Pack'd off in the mail, bed and bedding. 



'»• 



' For we weren't of importance enough 

Our court to great people to pay ; 
And so we were all ordered off. 

For fear of disgracing the day.' 

In a footnote appended to this precious effusion, 
Pitt is charged with having ' saddled the nation with 
pensions for Madam Hun, the Misses Hun, alias 
Cannings, alias Reddishes, a pension on her husband 
Mr. Richard Hun, a place in the West Indies for one 
Master Reddish, and military promotion in the East 
for the other, and, to crown the whole, a pension for 
poor Uncle Tommy, the tinker of Somers-town.' By a 
later effort of imagination, to ' brother Tom the tinker 
from Pentonville,' who, no doubt, is simply a variety of 
' poor Uncle Tommy, the tinker of Somers-town,' is 
added ' brother Bob, a common soldier from Botany 
Bay.' 

Mrs. Hunn is described as having been a woman of 
considerable force of mind and character, but of some- 



Domestic Relatioxs 73 

what original and eccentric manners, such as the neces- 
sary emphasis of the stage and the self-assertion of a 
competitive profession occasionally produce. There is 
a dim suggestion of Mrs. Crummies in the accounts we 
have of her ; but there is no trace of any disposition 
on Canning's part to keep her out of view ; and his wife, 
who was devoted to him, and, with Charles Ellis, was 
to the last his confidante, even beyond what is prudent 
in matters of State — he had no secrets from her, his 
friends said — is not likely to have been at variance with 
him on this point. Her own generosity to her sister 
is a strong presumption that she would not fail in gene- 
rosity and tenderness to one Avho had found a harbour 
after a stormy passage and some shipwrecks. Wolcot's 
libels, however, show amid what accompaniments of 
calumny and insult the business of public life w^as car- 
ried on at the close of the eighteenth and the beginning 
of the nineteenth centuries. On his marriage Canning 
left Spring Gardens and took up his abode in the house 
in Conduit Street now numbered 37, his occupation of 
which a tablet commemorates. He had previously lived 
at Putney, probably to be near Pitt, and while resident 
there had formed a friendship with the unhappy Prin- 
cess of Wales. He took part in the romps of Montagu 
House, Blackheath, in which graver persons — the bro- 
thers Scott, afterwards Lord Eldon and Lord Stowell, 
and Perceval — had been sharers. Of all these men 
Canning alone remained true to the Princess throughout 
her troubles. When she became queen he confronted 
the hostility of the King, w^hich at that time might 
mean permanent exile from political life, rather than 
join in the proceedings against her. 



74 George Canning 



CHAPTER XI. 

ATTACKS ON ADDIXGTON. 

The parliamentary union with Ireland had been passed 
in the two Parliaments of Westminster and Dublin in 
the summer of 1800. The aim of the political union 
was to defeat the French design of converting Ireland 
into a Hibernian republic after the Batavian, Cisalpine, 
and Ligurian model. The union of the Parliaments 
was, however, in Pitt's eyes, the condition under w^hich 
alone the moral union between the two countries which 
he thought Catholic Emancipation would secure became 
safe. The King refused his consent to any relief, 
and emphasised his refusal by going mad. Mr. Pitt 
resigned office, and after some months' delay, occasioned 
by the King's inability to attend to business, Mr. 
Addington became Prime Minister. Canning, who sat 
for the Irish borough of Tralee in the now United Par- 
liament, was bitter in his hostility to Addington and 
incessant in his efforts to restore Pitt to office. A sort 
of round-robin of protest and remonstrance was pro- 
jected, which was to be presented to Addington, asking 
him, as an act of Decian virtue, to sacrifice himself for 
his countr}' and to make way for Mr. Pitt. The Dean 
of Christ Church, Lord Malmesbury, and Canning were 
active in the matter. But the plot got wind. Pitt, 



Attacks on Addington 75 

who had covertly favoured the project, was forced to 
discountenance it, and the thing dropped. There were 
long intrigues, in which Canning was the most active 
agent. His hostility was not confined to attacks in 
Parliament and to machinations out of it. In the years 
1803-4 he was busy in the ' Oracle,' as he had been half 
a dozen years before in the ' Anti-J acobin,' but his attacks 
were now purely personal. The journal, so far as he is 
concerned, might have been properly called the ' Anti- 
Addington.' The indecencies to which he now and then 
descended would have amply justified the somewhat 
prudish remonstrance which Wilberforce addressed to 
him with respect to the ' Ant i- Jacobin.' The squibs of the 
period were reprinted in the annual volumes called ' The 
Spirit of the Public Journals ; ' and Sir George Lewis, 
in his ' Essays on the Administration of Great Britain 
from 1788 to 1830,' enumerates those which 'appear to 
be by Mr. Canning.' The first of these, entitled ' Proofs 
of Political Sagacity,' resembles those copious memo- 
randa for his speeches which Canning was in the habit 
of preparing, and contains indeed a good deal of the 
sarcasm w^hich is involved in the rhetoric and argument 
of his parliamentary speeches, disengaged from them 
and given in its undiluted essence. The points were 
given in a series of antitheses, supported by references 
to ministerial statements. The first two may serve as 
a specimen : — 

How very wise we were to make peace with Bonaparte, 
because his tone and temper were so friendly ! But 

How very wise we were to go to war with him again, 
because his tone and temper have always been so hostile ! 

Addington was to Canning — as he was, indeed, to 



'J 6 George Canning 

everybody in the colloquial slang of tlie lobbies, of 
society, and of the press — always the doctor. His 
father had been the family physician of Lord Chatham ; 
but the nickname, though this reference to the paternal 
profession is implied in it, is said to have been derived 
from his recommendation to the King of a hop-pillow 
as a soporific. ' The Doctor : an Ode — Scene, Treasury 
Chambers,' has the motto from Komeo and Juliet : ' I 
do remember an apothecary, and here about he dwells.' 

Doctor, Doctor ! what dose, narcotic, emetic, 
Diuretic, cathartic, or diaphoretic. 

Can retrieve your poor country's deplorable case. 
Her destruction avert or repeal her disgrace ? 

'Apothecaries' Hall, First of April, Mr. H. A.'s 
Birthday and Anniversary of the Arrival of the Treaty 
of Amiens,' describes a banquet in honour of Mr. 
Addington . It gives one stanza, not very remarkable, 
from a song in parody of Canning's own verses, ' The 
Pilot that Weathered the Storm,' addressed to 'The 
Pilot that Moored us in Peace.' The following 
Anacreontic, as it is called, refers to the fact that 
Addington had made his brother Hiley Addington, 
and his brother-in-law Bragge, afterwards Bragge- 
Bathurst (both of them, by the way, contributors to 
the ' Anti- Jacobin '), respectively Secretary of War and 
Treasurer of the Navy : — 

How blest, how firm the statesman stands 

(Him no low intrigue can move), 
Circled by faithful kindred bands, 

And propped by fond fraternal love. 
When his speeches hobble vilely, 
What 'Hear him's' burst from Brother Hiley ; 



Attaca's on Addixgton 77 

When his faltering periods lag, 
Hark to the cheers of Brother Braggc ; 
When the faltering periods lag, 
Or the yawning audience flag ; 
When his speeches hobble vilely, 
Or the House receives them drily, 

Cheer, oh, cheer him. Brother Bragge, 
Cheer, oh, cheer him. Brother Hiley. 
Each a gentleman at large. 
Lodged and fed at public charge. 
Paying (with a grace to charm ye), 
This the Fleet, and that the Army. 
Brother Bragge and Brother Hiley, 
Cheer him when he speaks so vilely ; 
Cheer him when his audience flag. 
Brother Hiley, Brother Bragge. 

In a subsequent letter Timothy Gosling sends a 
song, which he represents as having been accidentally 
omitted from the report of the meeting, and in which 
Pitt and Addington are contrasted : — 

MODERATE MEN AND MODERATE MEASURES. 
Praise to placeless proud ability. 

Let the prudent muse disclaim. 
And sing the statesman all civility. 

Whom moderate talents raise to fame. 
He no random projects urging. 
Makes us wild alarm to feel ; 
With moderate measures gently purging 
Ills that prey on Britain's weal. 

Chorus. 

Gently purging, 

Gently purging. 

Gently purging Britain's weal. 



78 George Canning 

Addington with measured motion 

Keeps the tenour of his way ; 
To glory yields no rash devotion, 

Led by burning lights astray. 
Splendid talents are deceiving, 

Tend to counsels much too bold ; 
Moderate men Ave prize, believing 

All that glistens is not gold. 

Choeus. 

All that glistens, 

All that glistens, 

All that glistens is not gold. 

' The Blocks ' is a paper containing a great variety 
of epigrams, comparing certain defences of the Thames 
so named with analogous political defences : — 

If blocks can from danger deliver. 
Two places are safe from the French ; 

The first is the mouth of a river. 
The second the Treasury Bench. 

' Ambubajarum Collegia, Pharmacopolse,' is a com- 
parison in verse between Addington and his colleagues 
and certain notorious quacks of the day. ' The Doctor's 
Practice justified by Precedent ' depicts Addington as 
a political Sangrado, bleeding and purging his patient 
to death. Young Bolus, in the following stanza, is 
Addington's son, to whom the Clerkship of the Pells 
had been given — a sinecure in the Court of Exchequer 
not more abusive than that which Canning himself 
held as Receiver-CTeneral of the Alienation Office : — 

Our Doctor's practice is the same. 
To park and lodge he makes his claim, 
In Bichmond Palace dwells; 



Attacks on Addington 79_ 

Gives Navy-purse to Brother Bragge, 
Hiley secures the Army bag, 

Young Bolus bolts the Pells. 
The patient next so high in blood, 
Cupped, bled, and purged, as he thinks good, 

He lowers to such condition. 
That while he swears he has sweetly dozed, 
And safe in peace serene composed, 

He dies of his Physician. 

'- More of the Doctor,' and the ^ Doctor versus 
Cocker,' do not contain anything very remarkable. 
The latter i^ossibly refers to the financial blunders of 
Addington, which had enabled Pitt to ' set up ' what 
Canning called ' a separate indignation ' of his own. 

' Good Intentions ' affects to be an extract from the 
first canto of a poem on that subject, of which the 
argument is thus given : — 

Happy that nation's lot I ween 

(As Briton's sons can tell). 
Whose rulers very little mean. 

But mean that little well. 

The theme is thus developed : — 

But more than all, we love to dwell 
On thy best talent, meaning well ; 
Whether thou flatter or alarm us. 
The intention never fails to charm us. 

Others, with necromantic skill. 

May bend men's passions to their will, 

Raise with dark spells the tardy loan, 

To shake the vaunting Consul's throne. 

In thee no magic arts surprise, 

No tricks to cheat our wondering eyes ; 



So George Chinning 

On thee shall no suspicion fall 
Of sleight of hand, or cup, or ball ; 
Even foes must own thy spotless fame, 
Unbrandecl with the conjuror's name. 

Ne'er shall thy virtuous thoughts conspire 
To wrap majestic Thames on fire ; 
And if that black and monstrous grain, 
Which strews the field with thousands slain, 
Slept undiscovered yet on earth. 
Thou ne'er hadst caused the monstrous birth 
Nor aided (such thy pure intention) 
That diabolical invention. 

Hail, then, on whom our State is leaning, 

O minister of mildest meaning ! 

Blest with such virtues to talk big on, 

With such a head (to hang a wig on) : 

Head of wisdom, soul of candour, 

Happy Britain's guardian gander. 

To rescue from the invading Gaul, 

Her Commerce, Credit, Capital ! 

While Kome's great goose could save alone 

One capitol of senseless stone. 

A prose ' Parallel between Buonaparte and Mr. 
Addington ' is long, and not in Canning's best vein. 
' St. James's Park Ghost,' an adventure of which Mr. 
Addington is the hero, has more of Swift's indecency 
than of his wit. ' A Symposium, or Attic Entertain- 
ment, given in Downing Street on the 6th day of Feb- 
ruary, 1804,' describes farcically an entertainment in 
honour of the birthday of the Prime Minister's father, 
to which the guests were summoned in the following 
billet, in the shape of a physician's prescription : — 



Attacks on Adding ton 8l- 

Vp. De cibis earn, et pise, sumatur : 
De vino quant. siiiF. recipiatur, 
Cum Reeit. atque Mus. sumencl. 
Ad gaud, et jocos promovendum. 

H. A., M.D. 

The festival is noisy. In its course Mr. Manasseli 
(whose name a later generation has contracted to 
Massey) Lopes is insultingly knocked down with a ham ; 
Sheridan misbehaves himself; Addington makes a 
speech in terms of medicine, and the meeting is broken 
up by the report of Bonaparte's landing in Essex. 

From ' A Quartetto, w^ritten for and sung at Mr. 
Addington's last public Dinner,' we take the parts of 
Addington, Tierney (who had quitted his party to take 
office under Addington) and Sheridan. 

Mr. Addington. 
If a body put a body in the Speaker's chair, 
Must a body be nobody but a cypher there ? 
My gown and wig, so long and big, they pleased tlie 

Royal eye, 
Both King and Queen admired my mien, so Minister am I, 

Mr. Tierney. 
If a body join a body called a party Whig, 
Need a body for that body care a single fig 1 
Like an ass retired Dundas from Bench of Treasury, 
So in his barge I sail at large, triumphant George 

Tierney. 

Mr. Sheridan. 
If a body everybody seeks to please and court, 
Must a body from nobody find the least support ? 
Not a man trusts Sheridan with half a halfpenny, 

Yet all the day I'm blithe and gay, and d at 

night am I. 

G 



82 George Canning 

Addington speaks in the following address, parodied 
from tlie ' Tragedy of Douglas,' Act II., Scene 1 : — 

The Straxger. 
My name's the Doctor ; on the Berkshire Hills 
My father purged his patients — a wise man 
Whose constant care w^as to increase his store, 
And keep his eldest son, myself, at home. 
But I had heard of politics, and long'd 
To sit within the Commons House, and get 
A place ; and luck gave what my sire denied, 
Some thirteen years ago, or ere my fingers 
Had learned to mix a potion, or to bleed, 
I flattered Pitt, I cringed, and sneak'd and fawn'd, 
And thus became the Speaker. I alone. 
With pompous gait and peruke full of wdsdom, 
The unruly members could control, or call 
The House to order. 

Tir'd of the chair, I sought a bolder flight, 
And grasping at his power, I struck my friend 
Who held that place which now I've made my own. 
Proud of my triumph, I disdained to court 
The patron hand which fed me, or to seem 
Grateful to him who raised me into notice ; 
And when the King had called his Parliament 
To meet him here, convened in Westminster, 
With all my family crow^ding at my heels. 
My brothers, cousins, followers, and my son, 
I showed myself Prime Doctor to the country. 
My end's attained : my only aim has been 
To keep my place and gild my humble name. 

Canning made merr}', in more than one paper, over 
a project to protect the coasts of the country by sinking 
large masses of stone in assailable places. He describes 



Attacks on Addington 83 

with much fulness in a poem, called ' The Stone Expe- 
dition ; or, The Doctor's Head Good for Something',' a 
scheme according to which Addington's head should be 
used as a maritime obstruction : — 

Thou who hast dragg'd the country clown so low, 
To save her yet might Roman virtue shew. 
That pond'rous head which ne'er presumed to think 
But England tottered on perdition's brink ; 
That head where army, navy, and finance 
Are jerk'd about like puppets in a dance ; 
Where all is chaos, where no reason's light 
Breaks forth to brighten the Boeotian night ; 
That head, that leaden cranium, wouldst thou lend, 
To the world's centre, should the mass descend. 
Neptune would tremble at the impulsive force 
Of such a plummet, and permit its course. 

The various accretions are described by which the 
head of Addington, sunk at the bottom of the sea, is 
converted into a shoal, to the despair and terror of 
Bonaparte, whose flotilla is wrecked on it, ' some 
ships having their bottoms beaten out by striking on 
the doctor's os frontis^ others foundering on the occiput,' 
&c. Mr. Yansittart proposes that the members of the 
Cabinet should visit in a diving-bell Hhe remains of 
the late Dr. A n, now for his country's sake con- 
verted into a mud bank.' But they all on various 
pretexts refuse. 

Apolitical song, ' Axing pardon,' refers to the speech 
of an Irish member who had spoken of Ireland as a 
woman in labour ' cured by the care and precaution of 
her doctor ' — a medical metaphor which Canning could 
not, of course, neglect the chance of turning to the 

G2 



84 George Canning 

ridicule of Acldington. ' A Petition Extraordinary ' 
affects to proceed from Addington, Castlereagli, and 
Mr. Yorke, and prays that ' Napoleon Buonaparte and 
others, his vile associates, may be delivered over to 
the custody of the Serjeant-at-arms, and retained in 
durance,' so that they may not invade the country until 
the Volunteer system of England is in full operation. 
Addington is said to have tried to enlist Tierney, to 
whom he had given office, and Sheridan, towards 
whom he made advances on his side in the conflict of 
pamphlets and paragraphs. The allusions to them 
in Canning's pasquinades show that he recognised or 
suspected the alliance. 

Dean Pellew attributes the origin of the feud 
between Canning and Addington to Canning's resent- 
ment of certain supposed slights on Addington's part. 
But the character and situation of the two men suffi- 
ciently explain it. ' I can't bear fools, anything but 
fools,' said Fox of Addington ; and this was, no doubt, 
Canning's feeling. They remained at variance until 
the year 1812, not speaking when they met in society. 
Canning, calling at the Home Office on private busi- 
ness in that year, was accidentally shown into 
Addington's (then Viscount Sidmouth's) waiting-room. 
Addington hearing his name sent for him, and with 
a generosity and gentleness of manner before which 
Canning, greatly moved, broke down, solicited a recon- 
ciliation. At Canning's request. Dean Jackson, some 
time after, wrote to Lord Sidmouth, to say how deeply 
Canning had felt the kindness, which at the moment he 
was physically unable to acknowledge. 



85 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE SECOND PITT ADMINISTRATION. 

Pitt affected to disapprove of Canning's attacks upon 
Addino-ton — ' Look vou, mock liim not ! ' — and of his 
over-zeal for Pitt's return to office. The ' experimental 
peace ' of Amiens was only a truce. The nation contem- 
plated with alarm the prospect of Addington's remaining 
at the head of affairs during the wai- that it was now 
seen must presently break out. Pitt wrote to the King, 
saying that he could no longer support the policy of 
the Ministry. This was on April 22, 1804. Pitt made 
an unsuccessful attempt to include Fox, Grenville, and 
their friends in the Administration. In the list of the 
proposed Ministry in Mr. Pitt's handwriting — of which 
Lord Stanhope has printed a facsimile — Canning is 
assigned the Irish Office. The King, who had just 
recovered from a fresli mental illness, declared that he 
preferred civil war to Fox, and Grenville declined to 
enter the Government without him. 

Canning was a reluctant member of Pitt's second 
Administration. He was deeply disappointed at the 
exclusion of Fox and Grenville. He told Pitt that he 
would rather not take office at all, and in any case he 
objected to Cabinet office, for which the country did 
not think him yet ripe. It would attribute his 



S6 George Canning 

advancement to favonritism on Pitt's part. He was 
anxious not to be in the secrets of administration, but 
if Pitt desired to liave a parliamentary friend close to 
him, and thought that he could be of assistance to him 
in the House of Commons, he would place himself at 
his disposal. The only offices, he added, outside the 
Cabinet which were in the line of j)romotion and 
seniority were the Secretaryship at War and the 
Treasurership of the Navy. A few days after this con- 
versation, on May 12, Pitt wrote to Canning, offering 
him his choice between the two offices he had desig- 
nated. Pitt, who did not like grudging and conditional 
support, added that he hoped Canning would not feel 
himself bound to take either if to do so was disagree- 
able to him. Canning chose the Treasurership of the 
Navy. Tiie Treasurership of the Navy was one of those 
lucrative offices the perquisites of which had been shorn 
more than twenty years before by Burke's economic 
reform. Before that time the incumbent of it was 
allowed, as was the Paymaster of the Forces, to employ 
for his own purposes the balances lying in his hands. 
When this abuse was abolished, the salar^^, which had 
been 2,000/. a year, was raised to 4,000/., with an 
allowance of 1,500/. a year for a deputy. The payment 
of seamen's wages and of the navy and victualling bills 
were among the duties of the Treasurer of the Navy, 
whose office in Broad Street was the centre on which 
depended branch establishments in different parts of 
the kingdom. 

A squib in the ' Oracle,' which Sir G. Lewis assigns 
to Canning, called ' Counter Theatricals,' in^ reply to a 
paper called ' Theatricals ' in the ' ]\Iorning Chronicle,' 



The Second Pitt Administration Zj 

ridicules more coarsely aud less cleverly than was 
Canning's wont the leading antagonists of Mr. Pitt's 
Government. It describes a comedy called ' Discon- 
tent ; or, The Murmurs of Opposition,' which is pre- 
sently to be j)roduced, and the company which are to 
act it. ' The ostensible Manager of the Company is 
an old Fox, who generally plays a principal part in the 
]3ieces acted by his troop. He was once in a manner 
lilssed off the Stage for disrespectful behaviour to the 
audience ; that is, for saying there was no audience 
worth acting to ' — this refers to Fox"s secession from 
1797 to 1802 — '■ and did not venture to reappear until 
a considerable time had elapsed. . . . He has always 
been considered an actor of great talents, tlio' exceed- 
ingly unhappy in the choice of parts which he ought 
to play, as well as in the pieces which he has produced, 
most of which have been irretrievably damned, &c. . . . 
Among those who are principally to support the 
Manager in this Drama is an Irishman, who is known 
among his friends by the name of Dan-Sherr}' or 
Sherry-Dan, supposed to have been given him by his 
Bottle Companions in allusion to the great quantities 
of sherry — we are told, however, claret — which he has 
been continually pouring down his throat, and which 
has lighted up a flame in his countenance that all the 
water in the House cannot extinguish. The next actor 
is known by the appellation of Wind-him, from his 
notorious liability to be wound or turned about, or in 
allusion to the variableness and inconsistency of the 
wind, which he a good deal resembles,' &c. 

Reluctant as Canning had been to join Pitt's second 
Administration, he was presently still more reluctant to 



88 George Canning 

remain in it. Pitt's majority proved small and un- 
certain. Addington carried with liim a certain number 
of dissentient Conservatives, and his help was essential. 
The Duke of Portland resigned the Presidency of the 
Council, which was conferred upon Addington, who 
was raised to the peerage with the title of Viscount 
Sidmouth. 

To Canning Addington's appointment was a bitter 
mortification. He wrote to Lady Hester Stanhope on 
hearing of it : ' Everybody must know that the arrange- 
ment which places Mr. Addington in the Cabinet dis- 
places me.' When the project was first mooted for 
overtures to Addington, he had thought that a peerage 
and a pension, not a Cabinet office, were intended. ' A.,' 
Canning went on to say, 'if I understand your letter 
right, is a Minister and I am nothing. I cannot help 
it. I cannot face the House of Commons or walk the 
streets in this state of things as I am.' He then asks 
Lady Hester to represeut to Pitt that he should make 
Canning's inevitable retirement his act, not by dis- 
missing him but by taking for granted that it is in- 
evitable, and by further explaining the matter to the 
King, with whom he wishes to stand well, and to Lord 
Melville, by whom he did not wish to be misunderstood. 
Canning was, however, induced to retain office, pro- 
bably on Pitt's appeal to his loyalty and patriotism. 
Addington, though he said naturally enough that he 
could never meet him nor alter his feelings towards 
him, disclaimed any idea of wishing to interfere with 
his private friendships or his prospects. 

The gain of Addington was as nothing to the loss 
of Melville, charged with having, as Treasurer of the 



The Second Pitt Administration 89 

Navy in a former Administration, misappropriated public 
money, and condemned by the House of Commons, 
though on impeachment acquitted by the House of 
Lords. 

Pitt, feeling the necessity of strengthening his 
Ministry, asked the King, during the recess of 1805, 
to allow him to propose office to Fox and the Gren- 
villes ; but the King was obstinate as regards Fox, and 
Thomas Grenville refused to come in without him. 
Canning, who told Malmesbury this in December, said 
that Pitt now felt that he must depend upon his own 
side, and that he and Charles Yorke were to be brought 
into the Cabinet — a statement which George Rose dis- 
credits. If Pitt had this design he did not live to 
carry it out. The disgrace of Melville, and the ruin at 
Ulm and Austerlitz of his plans of a European con- 
federation against France, against which the victory of 
Trafalgar alone could be set, broke down his physical 
strength. He took Melville's disgrace the more gravely. 
Austerlitz, he said to Huskisson, might be got over, but 
not the Tenth Report. Canning, who visited him on 
the day before his death at Putney, whither he had 
returned from Bath, saw that it was an affair of a fcAv 
hours. Canning had long been anxious. His admi- 
ration of his political chief and master was expressed 
in the epitaph on the statue in the Guildhall of 
London. 

Mr. Canning's parliamentary activity was not great 
during Mr. Pitt's second Administration. He spoke at 
length on the defences of the country in February 1805, 
of course supporting Mr. Pitt's schemes ; but the main 
call made upon his powers was for the defence of Lord 



90 George Canning 

Melville, already punisliecl by dismissal from office and 
the erasure of his name from the list of Privy Councillors, 
against the impeachment proposed by Mr. Whitbread. 
Canning held the office of Treasurer of the Navy, in 
which the offences, reduced by the decision of the 
House of Lords and b}' subsequent opinion to some- 
thing less than peculation, were committed, and he there- 
fore spoke with knowledge of the way of doing business 
in that department. He could not help seeing the 
funny side, not of the trial, but of some of the actors 
in it, and he was especially tickled with the virtuous 
egotism and self-importance of the speech in which 
Mr. Whitbread, the chief accuser, brought the articles 
of impeachment before the House of Lords, His sense 
of them was expressed in — 

' Fragment of ax Oration.' 

Part of Mr. Whitbread's speech at the trial of Lord 
Melville put into verse by Mr. Canning at the time it was 
delivered : — 

I'm like Archimedes for science and skill, 

I'm like a young Prince going straight up a hill ; 

I'm like (with respect to the fair be it said) — 

I'm like a young lady just bringing to bed. 

If you ask why the 1 1th of June I remember ^ 

Much better than April, or May, or November, 

On that day, my Lords, with truth I assure ye, 

My sainted progenitor set up his brewery ; 

On that day in the morn he began brewing beer, 

On that day, too, commenced his connubial career ; 

' The day on which Lord Melville was heard in his own defence 
at the bar of the House of Commons. 



The Second Pitt Administration 91 

On that day he received and he issued his bills ; 

On that day he cleared out all the cash from his tills ; 

On that day he died, having finished his summing, 

And the angels all cried, ' Here's old Whitbread a-coming.' 

So that day still I hail with a smile and a sigh. 

For his Beer with an e and his Bier with an i ; 

And still on that day in the hottest of weather 

The whole Whitbread family dine all together. 

So long as the beams of this house shall support 

The roof which o'ershades this respectable Court 

Where Hastings was tried for oppressing the Hindoos ; 

So long as that sun shall shine in at those windows. 

My name shall shine bright as my ancestor's shines, 

Mine recorded in journals, his blazon'd on signs. 

Canning had been a very discontented member of 
Pitt's second Administration. He was an uncomfortable 
colleague, hard to live with. At its formation he 
quarrelled with Hawkesbury, who refused to join him in 
trying to oust their old Oxford comrade, Wallace, from 
the India Board. He sneered at Hawkesbury himself 
in debate, and, emulating the youthful freedom of Fox, 
expressed his disapproval of the composition of the 
Ministry of which he was a subordinate member. He 
incurred Pitt's reproof and the threat of dismissal. 
But his attachment to Pitt was unabated, and Pitt's 
death consecrated it. 



George Canning 



CHAPTER XIII. 

CANNING AND THE GRENVILLE-FOX MINISTKY. 

Mr. Pitt's death, of course, dissolved his Administra- 
tion. To the close of his life Canning did not cease pas- 
sionately to vindicate the measures and character of the 
man in office and close political and personal connection 
with whom the first ten years of his parliamentary life 
had been passed. An early opportunity was given him 
of doing so. The House of Commons was asked to vote 
a sum of 40,000Z. for the payment of Pitt's debts, and 
it did so unanimously. But the motion for an address 
to the King in favour of a public funeral and a monu- 
ment in Westminster Abbey was opposed, among others, 
by Fox and Windham — by Fox on the ground that 
Pitt, though a pure and disinterested Avas a mischievous 
statesman; by Windham, who alleged that, whatever 
his merits, he had not won success. Canning protested 
against the vote for the payment of Pitt's debts being 
treated ' as an eleemosynary grant to posthumous 
necessities.' It was a ' public debt to a highly meri- 
torious public servant,' and only as such could his 
friends sanction it. On the death of Mr. Pitt the 
King endeavoured to find another Addington in Lord 
Hawkesbury in lieu of the Addington he had lost in 
Sidmouth, who was now the ally in faction, though not 



Canning and the Grenville-Fox Ministry 93 

in principles, of Fox and Grenville. But tlie time of 
Lord Hawkesbury, who as Lord Liverpool was destined 
to be Prime Minister for fifteen successive years, had 
not yet come. The King saw that there was nothing 
for it but to have recourse to Lord Grenville, as formerly, 
and with no less reluctance, he had been obliged to 
accept Lord Rockingham, and to allow Grenville, as 
formerly he had been forced to allow Rockingham, to 
bring Fox with him. In other respects the new 
Ministry resembles rather the coalition of 1783 than 
the purely Whig Administration of 1782. Grenville 
was an abler and firmer Portland; Sidmouth was a 
dull North; Fox, as Gobbo says, was himself. The 
Whig element predominated. Sidmouth, indeed, whose 
forty or fifty followers in the House of Commons could 
not be spared, would have been the only Tory and 
King's friend in it if he had not been allowed to bring 
in with him Lord Ellenborough, as he brought the 
Earl of Buckinghamshire into the second Ministry of 
Pitt. The faithful old steward and his mastiff, to use 
the expression of a contemporary observer, were em- 
ployed to watch the new servants. The appointment 
of Ellenborough was constitutionally open to grave 
objection. Lord Ellenborough was Lord Chief Justice 
of England, and in that character might quite con- 
ceivably have to preside over political prosecutions 
ordered by the Cabinet of which he was a member, 
being thus in practice judge and accuser. It was, no 
doubt, intended by the Toryism of the Lord Chief 
Justice to balance the Liberalism of the Lord Chan- 
cellor, Lord Erskine. A better arrangement was pro- 
posed, which w^ould have made Erskine Chief Justice 



94 



George Canning 



in tlie Court in which he had won so many victories 
for constitutional freedom, leaving him out of the 
Cabinet, and have given the Chancellorship to Ellen- 
borough, a great lawyer, though, where politics were 
concerned, an aggressive and tyrannical judge. This 
plan EUenborough declined to acquiesce in. Canning, 
with a true constitutional instinct, saw this fault in the 
composition of the Ministry. On March 3, 1806, Mr. 
Spencer Stanhope moved a series of resolutions con- 
demning the admission of the Lord Chief Justice of 
England to the Cabinet. Sir Samuel Eomilly, being 
Solicitor-General, was officially obliged to defend the 
arrangement. Mr. Canning, who might on this occa- 
sion have repeated Pitt's boast and claim to have 
unw(h)igged the gentlemen opposite, spoke with great 
vigour and grasp of principle. The most interesting 
passage of his speech to readers of the present day 
refutes an absurdity, still sometimes repeated with an 
air of great wisdom as one of the pleasing paradoxes, 
the tickling pleasantries, of our political system. The 
government of England being essentially government 
by the Cabinet, it is considered very piquant to say 
that the Cabinet is unknown to the Constitution. This 
was said to Canning, who replied that ' he never heard 
a more untenable proposition. In a free country such 
as this, where a control was necessary, and where re- 
sponsibility must necessarily lodge somewhere, were we 
at this day to be turned round upon by being told 
that there was no such thing as a Cabinet ? We had 
persons who advised with his Majesty, who performed 
all the functions of government, who were known 
as the Cabinet, who were known all over London and 



Canning and the Grenville-Fox Ministry 95 

the couutiy to be so ; but the moment we entered 
the door we were told that there was uo Cabinet. It 
miglit be true, indeed, that the Constitution recognised 
nothing under the name of the Cabinet, but it was not 
the less certain that there was such an assembly, with 
whom the responsibility for whatever advice they gave 
his Majesty rested.' In fact, all this talk of the Con- 
stitution knowing and not knowing, recognising and 
not recognising, is a misleading metaphor. In the 
sense in which there is no Cabinet, there is no English 
Constitution ; in the sense in which the English Con- 
stitution exists, the Cabinet now exists as a part of it, 
and as the most essential part. The English Consti- 
tution is not a paper constitution, though a paper con- 
stitution is not necessarily a bad thing. It is an affair 
of growth and usage, of method and practice, and the 
fact that a usage has grown up, and that a method has 
been put into habitual practice, makes them constitu- 
tional. It used to be said, and it is still now often said, 
that the office of Prime Minister is not known to the 
Constitution. Next to the existence of the Cabinet, 
and as an essential part of it, it is the most important 
element in the Constitution. The office was recognised 
officially for the first time, it may be, in the recital of 
the names and ranks of the plenipotentiaries in the pre- 
amble of the Treaty of Berlin, in which Benjamin 
Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, is described as ' First 
Lord of her Majesty's Treasury, Prime Minister of 
England.' In fact, there are two English Constitu- 
tions — a constitution of form and ornament, and one 
of fact and operation; a constitution of text-writers, 
and a constitution of actuality. The three powers in 



96 George Canning 

the arcliaic constitution are the Queen, Lords, and 
Commons in Parliament assembled. The three powers 
in the living and working constitution are the Prime 
Minister, the Cabinet, and the Commons dispersed 
through the electoral body. The new Constitution, 
which may be good or evil, acts through the forms and 
by the mechanism provided by the old, and may long 
do so ; but the form ought not to be confounded with 
the substance nor the matter with the spirit. 

Canning, who was afterwards destined to give his 
own name to a political school, was now become the 
leader of the group known as the Pittites. After a 
short interval of hesitation, based upon his former 
relations with Lord Grenville, he plunged into opposi- 
tion. George Rose, avIio, through their common rela- 
tions with Mr. Pitt, was very intimate with Canning, 
pays that he agreed with Grenville and was prevented 
from joining him only by party ties. Canning, in 
one of the debates in reply to a challenge from Fox, 
avowed his personal confidence in and esteem for Lord 
Grenville : ' But to talk of him now as the head of 
the Government, after all that we have heard, after all 
we have seen, to consider him as the directing and 
13residing mind, is impossible. I am sorry for it. But 
I admit no claim for confidence arising from an ex- 
pression which was applied to an individual, and which 
was founded on error as to his weight and situation in 
the Government. In his colleagues I never had, and 
never professed to have, the confidence which they now 
demand.' 

The following verses, entitled ' Elijah's Mantle ' 
{{'kle 2 Kings, chap, ii.), are printed in ' The Spirit of 



Caxxixg axd the Grexville-Fox Mixistry 97 

the Public Journals' for 1806. A prefatory note states 
that, ' though the author's name is withheld, most 
readers of taste will, we tliink, make a shrewd guess 
at the poet.' Canning told Lord Boringdon that, after 
the formation of Pitt's second Government, he had 
abjured for ever all communication with the gentlemen 
of the press ; but these verses did not appear in any 
newspaper. There can be little doubt that they are 
from the pen of Mr. Canning, and they express his 
feeling towards Mr. Pitt and towards Mr. Pitt's 
ministerial successors with more than parliamentary 
freedom. He exhorts the several Ministers to emulate 
Pitt :— 

Grenville, to aid the Treasury fame, 

A portion of his mantle claim, 
Pitt's generous ardour feel ; 

'Bove sordid self resolve to soar, 

Amidst Exchequer gold be pure ; 
Thy wealth a nation's weal. 

Fox, if on thee some remnant fall, 
The shred may to thy mind recall 

Those hours of loud debate, 
When thy unhallowed lips oft praised 
The glorious fabric traitors raised 

On Bourbon's fallen state. 

Thy soul let Pitt's example fire, 
With patriot zeal thy tongue inspire, 

Spite of thy Gallic leaven. 
And teach thee in thy latest day. 
His form of prayer, if thou canst pray, 

' O save my country. Heaven ! ' 

H 



98 George Canning 

Windham, if e'er thy sorrow flow 
At private loss or public woe, 

Thy rigid brow unbend ; 
Tears over Caesar Brutus shed, 
His hatred warr'd not with the dead, 

And Pitt was once thy friend. 

Does envy bid thee not to mourn. 
Hold thou his mantle up to scorn. 

His well-earn'd fame assail ; 
Of funeral honours rob his corse. 
And at his virtues till thou art hoarse, 

Like the Greek cynic, rail. 

Illustrious Hoscius of the State, 
Now breech 'd and harness'd for debate, 

Thou wonder of thy age ! 
Petty or Betty, art thou hight, 
By Granta sent to strut thy might (night ?) 

On Stephen's bustling stage. 

Pitt's chequered robe 'tis thine to wear. 
Take of his mantle, too, a share ; 

'Twill aid thy ways and means ; 
And should fat Jack and his cabal 
Cry, ' Rob us the Exchequer, Hal,' 

'Twill charm away the fiends. 

Sidmouth, though low that head is laid 
Which call'd thee from thy native shade 

And gave thee second birth ; 
Gave thee the sweets of power and place. 
The tufted robe and gilded mace, 

And rear'd thy puny worth ; 



Canning and the Grenville-Fox Ministry 99 

Think how his mantle wrapt thee round ; 
Is one of equal virtue found 

Among thy new compeers % 
Or can thy cloak of Amiens stuff, 
Once laugh'd to scorn by blue and buff, 

Hide thee from Windham's jeers ? 

Mr. Canning's parliamentary compliments to Lord 
Grenville v/ere sarcasms scarcely masked. A current 
of steady animosity lay beneath the alternating recon- 
ciliations and alienations of Canning and his old chief 
at the Foreign Office. To say that the ostensible 
Prime Minister is not really the head of the Govern- 
ment over which he seems to ^^reside, to assume that 
he is without decisive weight, the directing spirit being 
with another, is to use the most dexterously chosen 
topic and language of disparagement and irritation. 

Fox was obviously sinking when, in 1804, Pitt's 
plan for a combined Administration broke down. Fox 
reconciled himself to his proscription by the King on 
the ground that he was too old for office. His expe- 
rience two years later confirmed his conclusion. Yet 
he was then only fifty-five years of age, and was now 
fifty-seven, a time of life at which later statesmen — 
Lord Palmerston, Lord Beaconsfield, and Mr. Glad- 
stone — have had the most active and distino'uished 
part of their career before them. Pleasure and self- 
indulgence had done in Fox's case what incessant 
labour (not unaided by the two-bottle habits of the 
time) had done more rapidly by twelve years in Pitt's. 
Fox had this advantage over Pitt, that he knew how 
to take life easily. He enjoyed the retreat of St. Anne's 
and his book under a tree. Pitt pined and repined 

H 2 



100 George Canning 

out of office, ill which more than twenty out of his 
twenty-three years of parliamentary life had been 
spent. It was now obvious, however, that Fox must 
be relieved of a part of his parliamentary labours. 
Though he still attended to the duties of his depart- 
ment, he had been compelled towards the middle of 
June to give up attendance in the House of Commons. 
Grenville, through Lord Wellesley, made overtures 
to Canning, who described their character in a letter 
to Lord Boringdon, dated August 9. Canning alone 
was to be admitted into the Cabinet. Professional 
advancement w^as to be secured to Perceval, who at 
this time combined politics Avith his practice at the 
bar. Other claims were to be considered as oppor- 
tunity arose. Canning showed prudence and good 
sense in rejecting the proposal. ' To be plunged at 
once,' he said, ' into the midst of the ^^resent Cabinet, 
constituted as it now is, and that not in consequence 
of any general arrangement on either side, but by Lord 
Grenville's individual selection of me individually, and 
w^ithout the King's previous knowledge ; in these cir- 
cumstances to have the labour of the House of Commons 
devolved upon me in Fox's absence and (what would 
be worse) under Fox's occasional superintendence, would, 
I really think, have formed altogether the most un- 
endurable, the most discreditable, and the most hopeless 
situation into which any man ever was misguided by 
an inconsiderate precipitancy of ambition.' In the 
event of the continuance of the war, Canning intimated 
that he might get over his difficulties in order to aid 
the Government, though even then he could not re- 
concile himself to tLe project which Lord Granville 



Caxxixg axd the Grexj7lle-Fox I\I/xistrv ioi 

Levesoii-Gower luicl heard as in contemplation of 
' Fox's retaining his office, and discontinuing parlia- 
mentary attendance with a purpose of coming down 
now and then to see that things were going on right.' 
Most of all, the Kino- must be admitted into his own 
Government ' if the Ministry was to be all that it 
ought to be for weight, authority, popularity, and con- 
iidence.' He ' must approve the design and be seen 
in the execution,' This doctrine is either harmless or 
mischievous, as it is interpreted and applied. Canning 
had seen enouo-h of the relations between the Kino- 
and his Ministers to know the necessity of a good 
understanding between them. It was difficult to carry 
on the King's Government with the King in opposi- 
tion. Canning showed later in life, in combating the 
attempted proscription of him by George IV., that he 
could manfully resist the excesses of royal pretensions. 
But the Canning of 1896-7 was not the Canning of 
1824-27 any more than the Pitt of 1781 was the Pitt 
of 1804. Happily for himself and England, the later 
was the greater and nobler Canning. That Canning- 
was wise in declining to take the leadership of the 
House of Commons, subject to the occasional visitations 
of Fox ' to see that things were going on right,' no 
one who has witnessed the effects of somewhat similar 
arrangements in our recent parliamentary history can 
doubt. Fox's temper was large and generous, but 
Canning's was sensitive and irritable, and did not 
brook control even in positions more easily manageable 
than that which was proposed. 

Fox's health continued to decline. He told Grey 
shortly after taking office that there were two things 



102 George Canning 

on wliicli liis mind was set — tlie abolition of the slave 
trade and tlie establishment of an honourable and 
durable peace. The first he put in train for accom- 
plishment, declaring that in contributing to it he felt 
that his forty years of public life had not been spent in 
vain. Happily, perhaps, for him, he did not live to see, 
though he must have foreseen, the failure of the nego- 
tiations for peace which he had set on foot. He had 
come up to Downing Street in September, but he could 
not bear the journey back to St. Anne's. He broke it 
at Chiswick, staying at the Duke of Devonshire's villa, 
where he died in the very room in which, about twenty 
years later. Canning, whose political fortunes and future 
were so closely involved in his, breathed his last. ' 

Fox died on September 13, 1806. While Fox was 
still living, Grenville reopened communication with 
Canning for a reconstruction of the Ministry on a 
larger scale than he had thought practicable in June. 
The first proposal had been a seat in the Cabinet for 
Canning, a law office for Perceval, and a Privy Coun- 
cillor's 2)lace for whomsoever Canning should name. 
Afterwards, at Lord Grenville's request. Canning sent 
in a list of persons ' not who must all have offices, but 
among whom such offices as could be opened must be 
distributed, and of whom such as were not included 
in the distribution must nevertheless be consulted, and 
excluded only by their own consent.' The list was 
larger than Lord Grenville had anticipated, and he 
regarded the pretensions it set forth as extravagant. 
Two, or at most three, seats in the Cabinet (including 
Fox's) were all that he thought he could dispose of. 
Canning did not expect Fox's office for himself; that, 



Canning AND the Grenville-Fox Ministry 103 

lie tliouglit, would be given by Grenville to liis brother 
Thomas, now for the first time brought into the Min- 
istry. The seats to be distributed among Canning 
and his friends Avere the Presidency of the Council, 
which Lord Fitzwilliam might be willing to give up, 
and the Presidency of the Board of Control, and pos- 
sibly the Secretaryship at War, at the moment held 
by Lord Minto and General Fitzpatrick respectively 
without Cabinet rank. Nobody but Lord Fitzwilliam 
had any thought, according to Canning, of moving. The 
retention of Lord Ellenborough, of Windham, whom 
as War Minister Canning had attacked and mercilessly 
ridiculed, and of the Doctor was unacceptable to him. 
Canning insisted on five seats in the Cabinet. One of 
them, without office, he destined for Lord Eldon, whom 
he thought sufficiently paid by his ex-Chancellor's pen- 
sion of 4,000Z. a year ; Lord Chatham (as his father's 
son and his brother's brother) was to have another; 
' Castlereagh and myself in the House of Commons 
(even if Yorke could be omitted) make four, and Liver- 
pool or Westmoreland must be the fifth.' ' Less than 
this,' Canning said, ' he could not propose to his friends ; ' 
and he proposed even this with the assurance that it 
would be too much for Grenville, as it proved to be. 
Lord Malmesbury was in ecstasies with the disinte- 
rested conduct of Canning. He considered that Gren- 
ville's proposals were simply intended to disunite Pitt's 
friends, and that Canning had behaved nobly in reject- 
ing, from principle, the splendid offers which were made 
to him. Grenville Avas reduced by these refusals to 
follow the course to which Pitt had been driven just be- 
fore his death, and to strengthen himself from his own 



104 George Caxxixg 

side. Lord Ilowick (Grey), Fox's most intimate poli- 
tical friend, succeeded his chief as Foreign Secretary. 
Thomas Grenville took Howick's place at the Admiralty ; 
Lord Fitzwilliam gave up the Presidency of the Council 
for a seat in the Cabinet without office ; Lord Sidmouth 
becoming Lord President, and vacating the office of 
Privy Seal for Fox's nephew. Lord Holland. On the 
failure of the negotiations with France Ministers ap- 
pealed to the country. They met the new Parliament 
on December 15, 1806, with an increased majority. 
The Whigs, who had opposed what was in its origin a 
war of aggression and territorial spoliation by the mon- 
archs of Europe against Republican France, in denial 
of her right to choose her own form of government, 
now with perfect consistency opposed the aggression of 
Imperial France on the liberties and independence of 
Europe. Mr. Fox had strongly insisted on the main- 
tenance of the nti [possidetis principle, which was the 
original basis of negotiations. Napoleon, departing 
from this basis, insisted that, while France kept what 
she had won, England should surrender her conquests, 
or nearly all of them. The Ministry seemed to have a 
long career before it, but it was doomed to perish. 
It was the King's hand which destroyed the King's Go- 
vernment. As he had overthrown the Portland Ministry 
in 1782 and the Pitt Ministry in 1801, so now, in 
1807, he overturned the Grenville Ministry'. Partly in 
obedience to Avhat he deemed sound principles, partly 
with the view of uniting all the subjects of the King 
in resistance to the common enemy. Lord Ilowick 
brought in a Bill removing certain restrictions upon 
Roman Catholic service and promotion in the army. 



C.IXN/XG AXD THE G RnNVILLE-FoX MiXISTRY 10$ 

The old steward, whose business it was to play spy on 
the new servants, gave the alarm. Lord Sidmouth sent 
in his resignation. The measure had been insuffi- 
ciently explained to the King. When he learned its 
real character he insisted on its withdrawal, and re- 
quired from his Ministers a ^^l^dge not to raise the 
Catholic question in future. On their refusal they 
were dismissed. This was on March 25, 1807, the day 
on which the Bill for the abolition of the slave trade — 
the great achievement of the Grenville-Fox Administra- 
tion — received the royal assent. 

Canning had been specially bitter in his hostility to 
the Ministry, which, as Fox politely said, could certainly 
not claim in his absence the title of ' All the Talents ! ' 
He showed the thoroughness of his hostility by mov- 
ing, in December 1806, an entirely new Address as 
an amendment upon the Address. He attacked Mr. 
Windham's army schemes as invasions of the royal 
prerogative. There was something like a revival of the 
old institution of the King's friends. The Court w^as 
whispered to be hostile to the Ministry. The members 
of the Household were ostentatiously slack in supporting- 
it. The cry that party connections and great families 
oppressed the King was heard once more. ' Mr. Pitt's 
friends,' so called to distinguish them from the Adding- 
tonian Tories, were disunited in that character by the 
conflicting pretensions of Castlereagh, Perceval, and 
Canning, but they were united as Mr. Fox's enemies. 
If Lord Howick's Bill had not afforded a pretext for the 
dismissal of the Ministry another would have been 
found. 



io6 George Canning 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE PORTLAND ADMIXISTRATIOX — MR. CAXXIXCt FOREIGX 
SECRETARY. 

The Duke of Portland had written to tlie King, saying 
that he hoped he should not offend his Majesty if he 
opposed Lord Howick"s Catholic Eelief Bill, and offer- 
ing his services to the King in forming a new Adminis- 
tration if it was thought he could be of any use. In 
spite of his numerous infirmities he was prepared, he 
said, to serve the King devotedly and faithfully to the 
end of his existence. Lord Malmesbury made himself 
active in the business, and Canning was not behind- 
hand. 'Canning," Malmesbury writes, 'speaks as if 
the choice of Cabinet places was at his disposal, and 
vowed with a threat that he would never sit in the 
same Cabinet with Addington.' Malmesbury describes 
a conversation with Canning at his chambers in the 
Albany, ' settling administrations, castles in the air.' 
The impression made by Canning on Malmesbury at 
that time Avas not altogether favourable. Though 
clever and ^^lausible, he was not yet, he says, a states- 
man, and his habit of quizzing was a dangerous one. 
' Spoiled as he has been, feared and wanted as he finds 
himself, no place is high enough for him ; his ambition 



The Portland Administration 107 

rises beyond this visible diurnal sphere.' Yet Canning, 
the man certainly of the highest political genius and 
parliamentary eminence whom England lias produced 
since Pitt and Fox, had up to this time been outside 
the Cabinet, into which Lord Castlereagh had been 
introduced before him, and into which Lord Henry 
Petty entered with the office of Chancellor of the 
Exchequer at the age of twenty-five. His impatience 
and eagerness now were not unnatural. The King 
expressed his readiness to leave everything to the 
Duke of Portland, with the reservations which usually 
follow this unconditional surrender. Lord Westmore- 
land, a part of the furniture of almost ever}^ Cabinet 
for a quarter of a century, must have a place, and Lord 
Charles Somerset must be provided for — his claim being 
that his wife, formerly a Miss Courtney, was a favourite 
of the princesses, and spoke the English of Parson 
Trulliber. Out of respect for the memory of the late 
Mr. Pitt, the King desired that Lord Chatham should 
be consulted in the formation of the Ministry. With 
these trifling restrictions, the Duke of Portland was 
free to dispose of everything as he pleased. Lord 
Chatham was the mere mask of a statesman, bearing 
a close reseml)lance in appearance to his illustrious 
father, but such a resemblance as a waxwork figure 
shows to its original. What he was in the Walcheren 
Expedition he was in politics, holding high place Avith- 
out capacity, and without consciousness of incapacity, 
to fill it — luxurious, indolent, and mindless. Canning 
was offered by the Duke his choice between the Foreign 
Office and the Admiralty. He would have ceded the 
Foreign Office to Wellesley or Lord Malmesbury if 



io8 George Canxlxg 

either of them would liave taken it, but lie properly 
declined to waive his claims to men who, like Lord 
Chichester, were merely ' old hacks of office.' Lord 
Malmesbury advised him to take the I oreign Depart- 
ment, and, on his returning to the Duke of Portland 
to intimate his acceptance of it, he was carried by him 
straightway to the Queen's house at Windsor to kiss 
hands. Lord Hawkesbury became Home Secretary ; 
Lord Castlereagh Colonial and AVar Secretary (as in 
Pitt's second Administration) ; and Perceval Chancellor 
of the Exchequer, with the leadership in the House of 
Commons. Outside the Cabinet Huskisson held the 
office of Secretary of the Treasury, and Sir Arthur 
Wellesley was Chief Secretary for Ireland. 

Of all the Ministerial appointments, that of Canning 
— probably the best of them all — was the most severely 
criticised. He was gratified, however, by the recejDtion 
of ' a very gracious communication ' from the Dean of 
Christ Church. Whether or not Canning had carried 
out his project of learning French beyond the point of 
being able to swear at a waiter and call a cab does not 
appear. In his letter to Lord Boringdon while he was 
Under Secretary, he admits that he could not write it. 
Now the accusation, well or ill founded, was that he 
could not speak it. To attack the French of a Foreign 
Minister is like attacking the chastity of a woman, the 
courage of a soldier, or the orthodoxy of a clergyman. 
The satire of the newspapers was directed mainl}' to 
this point. Canning is described as unable to make 
out who a certain ' Monsieur Nong-tong-paw ' is to 
whom he is referred whenever he speaks French. He 
is told to 



The Portland Admixistration 109 

Brush up your very best jokes, I pray ; 

And though you can't speak any Frencli, they say, 

Why, as for that matter, 

Fitzharris can chatter. 
And you may keep out of the way. 

Lord Fitzharris was Lord Mahiiesbury's son. and 
Canning's nnder secrstary. Canning has 

The gift of hmgs, 
Without, alas, the gift of tongues. 

The ' Morning Chronicle,' which was the principal 
vehicle of these attacks, published an elaborate account 
of a misunderstanding which had arisen between 
M. Alopeus, the llussian Minister, w^ho knew every 
modern language but English, and Mr. Canning, who 
knew no modern language but English. ' The con- 
ference w^as on the point of breaking up re infedd, but 
his Excellency M. Alopeus, making one further effort — 
it is supposed in Latin — by frequently vociferating the 
word " Groom, oroom ! " and accompanying the expla- 
nation w^tli the significant action of turning out the 
inside of his breeches-pockets with, a view, it would 
seem, of proving them to be both empty, our Minister, 
wdiose acuteness has never been doubted, concluded 
that " aurum " was the w^ord M. Alopeus wished to 
pronounce, and that the exhibition of the empty 
breeches-pockets implied the demand of a subsidy for 
our magnanimous ally his Imperial Majesty. The ques- 
tion of a subsidy for Russia is therefore now believed 
to be under the consideration of the new Cabinet.' 
M. Ilagout, who had formerly been ' Chef de Cuisine 
and Premier Ministre to Miior JIardvic in Ireland,' 



no George Canning 

and afterwards in ' le confiance of M. le Docteur a 
Dindon (Addington), dans la rue de Downing Street 
a Londres/ writes to announce tliat lie lias become 
Chef de Cuisine to Milor le Secretaire Caningue. ' He 
is ver fine Ministre, but lie play de very Diable in de 
Bureau of de Affaires Etrangeres. He no understand 
one word of Franyais.' It is officially announced that 
' Mr. Canning has taken several lessons of the Duke of 
Portland's cook, and can already conjugate the verb 
etre.' In the report of a Ministerial dinner, it is stated 
that ' about eleven o'clock the company became rather 
turbulent, Mr. Canning having seriously differed with 
Sir William Grant respecting the accurate pronuncia- 
tion of the word ^^ciroissial, which Mr. Canning insisted 
should be uttered like "parasol." Sir William, be- 
coming very warm,' &c. In a box which Mr. Canning's 
messenger is supposed to have left behind him in a 
hackney-coach, are found, among other things, a new 
French grammar and Boyer's Dictionary abridged, 
French and English, with two French exercises in 
manuscript. 

Canning complained bitterly of the disorganised 
condition of the Foreign Office when he entered it. 
The abuses were great. Whether from carelessness or 
from treachery, there was absolutely no secrecy. The 
messengers were idle and talkative, and the circulation 
of documents, always dangerous, was especially so in 
such a Cabinet as that over which the Duke of Portland 
failed to preside. Canning did not, perhaps, recall the 
memory of the time when Lord Grenville made the 
same complaints as he did now, of the want of good 
faith and reticence in the Foreign Office and in the 



The Por tla nd A dminis tea tion hi 

Cabinet, when a resolution of silence was passed to 
tie up Pitt's tongue, and wlien Canning himself was 
the medium of communications to the press, with the 
intention of thw^arting Grenville himself. He had no 
assistance from the Duke of Portland, whose appoint- 
ment was in direct opposition to Pitt's principle that 
the real Minister should be the ostensible Minister also, 
and to that which Canning presently evolved for his 
own benefit, that the Prime Minister should be in the 
House of Commons. The Duke's colleagues set up on 
their own account, taking upon themselves functions 
which really belonged to him, apparently without his 
resenting it or even perceiving it. He fell into fits of 
dead silence when any point was raised, and had not a 
single supporter in the Cabinet upon whom he could 
rely in the improbable event of his venturing to contest 
any point. Lord Chatham took airs upon himself as 
his associate in the formation of the Government, and 
Lord Hawkesbury and Lord Eldon w^ere more in the 
confidence of the King than the Duke. Portland sufiered 
agonies from stone, and any attempt to concentrate his 
attention, whether in reading or in listening, sent him 
to sleep. 

Under such a Prime Minister, unhindered by him 
if unsupported by him. Canning had a free hand in 
foreign affairs. He held office for somewhat less than 
two years and a half — from March 25, 1807, to 
September 9, 1809. The period was marked by great 
events, and Canning played a great part in them. The 
defeat of the Russian army at Friedland led to the 
meeting of the Emperors, Napoleon and Alexander, 
on the raft moored in the Niemen. The Treaty of 



112 George Caxxixg 

Tilsit with its secret articles was the result, to which 
Canning replied by the seizure of the Danish fleet at 
Copenhagen and its transportation to England. The 
Berlin decree, and the Order in Council which com- 
bated it, had been issued during the Grenville Admi- 
nistration. It was under Canning's Foreign Secretar}— 
ship that the further Orders in Council were framed 
which led to the Milan decree — the one intended to cut 
off British trade with the Continent, the other to shut 
out from the Continent all articles carried in vessels 
which had not touched at a British port. The com- 
mencement of the Peninsular War and of the great 
career of Wellington as a European soldier — that is to say, 
the beginning of the end of the Napoleonic tyranny — 
was due to Mr. Canning's genius and boldness in the 
direction of foreign polic}'. Personal and ministerial com- 
plications, in part owing to the imbecility of the nominal 
chief of the Government, in part to Canning's perception 
of the real exigencies of the time and to the insuffi- 
ciency of his colleagues to meet them, in part to his 
own too restless and eager ambition, prevented his being 
the Minister to complete the w^ork he had begun. They 
made him an exile from power at a time when two 
years of office were, to use his own phrase, worth ten 
years of life. But he laid the foundation of the edifice 
which others built, and sowed the seeds of which others 
reaped and garnered the harvest. 

A secret article of the Treaty of Tilsit, by which 
Russia and France agreed to make common cause 
against their respective enemies, and especially against 
JCngland, is said to have arranged for the occupation of 
Denmark by French troops and for the seizure of the 



The Portlakd Admixistration 113 

Danish fleet by Napoleon, for the purpose of destroying 
the supremacy of England on the sea and of invading 
the country. The Crown Prince of Denmark ac- 
quiesced in this proposal, which had been made to 
the Eegent of Portugal also, and declined by him. If 
this measure had been effected, all the navies of Europe 
would practically have been converted into a French 
fleet. The overture addressed to Portugal was disclosed 
to the Prince of Wales, who informed the Duke of 
Portland of it at an audience in Carlton House. By 
some means (what they were he never would reveal) 
Mr. Canning was made aware of the project of handing 
over the Danish fleet to France, and of the acquiescence 
of the Crown Prince of Denmark in the design. He 
resolved to be beforehand with the enemy. A British 
fleet, under Lord Gambler, wdth transports conveying 
land troopSj entered the Sound. A special envoy was 
sent to the Crown Prince, informing him that the secret 
article of the Treaty of Tilsit had come to the know- 
ledge of the English Government, and demanding the 
surrender of his fleet to Lord Gambler, to be by him 
conveyed into English ports, and to be there kept in 
safety until peace should be concluded between England 
on the one side and France and Kussia on the other, 
when it would be restored in sound condition. Such a 
demand as this, though it may have been right to make 
and enforce it, could not be granted without ignominy. 
It was refused. After a four days' bombardment of 
Copenhagen, in which the city was set on fire, the fleet 
and arsenal were surrendered. 

How Mr. Canning became aware of the scheme 
which he thus defeated is one of the puzzles of history, 

I 



114 George Canning 

like the identity of tlie Man in the Iron Mask and the 
authorship of Junius. According to Mr. Stapleton 
(' George Canning and his Times,' p. 105), ' an indi- 
vidual was concealed behind a curtain of the tent ' [on 
the raft on the Niemen], ' and then and there heard 
Napoleon propose to Alexander, and Alexander consent 
to the proposition, that the French should take posses- 
sion of the powerful fleet of Denmark, which was lying 
in the waters of Copenhagen. The individual who thus 
acquired a knowledge of the bargain lost no time in 
communicating it to the British Government, and gave 
such proofs of the accuracy of his intelligence as left 
no doubt of its truth in Mr. Canning's mind.' Mr. 
Stapleton was in later years Canning's private secretary. 
Canning sometimes confided in him ; perhaps some- 
times with the disposition to quiz which Malmesbury 
deplored, he hoaxed him. The story reads like a trans- 
lation of events into the action of the theatre. As on 
the stage a war between rival countries is represented 
by making the kings fight in person, so the discovery of 
an intrigue is made obvious to the eye and mind b}^ 
introducing a listener behind a curtain. According to 
Fouche, Napoleon, whose outburst of rage when he 
heard of what had happened at Copenhagen was 
terrible, suspected Talleyrand of selling the informa- 
tion as to the secret article. If the accounts of our 
Secret Service Fund were kept they might throw some 
light on the matter. Canning may have recollected the 
negotiations ten years before with the representatives 
of the French Directory at Lisle, when for 200,000L 
Talleyrand was willing, as Lord Malmesbury reported, 
to secure to England any of the Dutch colonies. 



The Portland Administration 115 

The conduct of Mr. Canning was attacked in both 
Houses of Parliament as a violation of the principles of 
international law and morality. But the attack was 
indirect ; it resolved itself into the assertion that the 
information before the House did not give sufficient 
grounds for the action of the Government. It was 
admitted practically that England was not bound to 
perish with Puffendorff if she could be saved only with- 
out him. This was the substance of the motion brought 
forward by Mr. George Ponsonby, formerly Lord 
Chancellor of Ireland, now, in virtue of his relation- 
ship to Lord Grey, leader of the Liberal party in the 
House of Commons, the hero, or victim, later, of Lord 
Palmerston's squib, ' The Trial of Henry Brougham for 
calling the Right Hon. George Ponsonby an Old Woman.' 
Canning's reply was simple. It Avas in substance this : 
If you will not acquit us without further evidence, con- 
demn us ; for we will never disclose the source of our 
information. This language goes far to refute the 
theory of the accidental man behind the tent curtain. 
It is probable that the information came from someone 
highly placed in French or Russian political life, and 
highly paid by England. The Emperor Alexander 
privately expressed his satisfaction at what had hap- 
pened at Copenhagen, but it is not legitimate to infer 
from this that he was a party to the disclosure as well 
as to the secret. 

The refusal of the Prince Regent of Portugal to 
lend his fleet to the maritime coalition against England 
brought upon him the Napoleonic decree : ' The House 
of Braganza has ceased to reign.' Portugal was to be 
dismembered and divided between France and Spain. 

I 2 



ii6 George Caxxing 

Spain had become, under the vassal monarchy of 
Joseph Bonaparte, ^v^ctic2ii\.y a province of the Em- 
pire, which thus dominated the whole of the Iberian 
Peninsula. The Spaniards rose in rebellion, in the 
name of Ferdinand VII., now a prisoner at Bayonne. 
The rising, however, was national and not dynastic. 
Canning saw that to come to the help of the Spanish 
people was the best means of carrying on the war 
against France. The invasion of England was still 
Napoleon's dream, and all his measures were directed 
towards organising that dream into a reality. It was 
not in any crusading or knight-errant spirit, but in 
one of self-defence, that Canning welcomed the Spanish 
revolt and sent Sir Arthur Wellesley to Corunna to 
aid and to organise it. The Spaniards were, perhaps, 
not unnaturally distrustful of the part which England, 
hitherto at war with them, intended to play in the 
struggle. They asked for arms and money, but they 
did not want English soldiers, and they requested that 
"Wellesley should confine himself to clearing the 
French out of Portugal. Practically this was done on 
August 21,1 808, when the battle of Yimiera was fought 
and won. The Convention of Cintra followed, which, 
allowing the French to evacuate Portugal with their 
arms and with the property which they had plundered 
from the Portuguese, half undid the victory. Though 
"Wellesley signed the convention he disapproved it, and 
his name was appended to it merely as a matter of form 
in obedience to the two generals who had been placed over 
his head, Sir Hew Dalrymple and Sir Harry Burrard. 
This, happily, was the last of these examples of the 
princij^le of command in virtue of seniority. 



The Por tl . i xd A dm/nis tra tion i i 7 

To Canning the Convention of Cintra was a bitter 
mortification. It was disapproved by everybody in 
England ; the King himself censured it ; but it could 
not be undone. Some decision in respect to it — what, 
is not very clear — which was taken in the Cabinet 
during Canning's absence, was the beginning of that 
quarrel with Lord Castlereagh which led to the duel 
on Putney Heath and to Canning's banishment from 
official life during the six momentous years of war 
which preceded the settlement of Europe by the Treaty 
of Vienna. Canning and Castlereagh carried on a 
conflict of memoranda on the subject of the convention. 
Canning contended that as the King could not himself 
plunder his allies, his generals could not authorise 
their plunder, and that the article on this subject must 
be annulled. Castlereagh, equally disapproving the 
stipulation, held that, having been made, it was valid. 
It is probable that in any case Canning would have 
quarrelled with Castlereagh sooner or later, as he had 
done before with Addington, and as he did afterwards 
with Perceval and Wellington. The essential generosity 
and nobleness of the man's nature were marred by a 
certain eagerness and paltriness of self-assertion which 
could not tolerate delay in the recognition of the claims 
of the highest genius to the highest place, and which 
involved him in many unworthy wrangles, if not in 
still more unworthy intrigues. 

The melancholy fate of Sir John Moore, who was 
chief in command in Portugal, makes Canning's con- 
troversy with him — a controversy which survived 
Moore's death — a painful passage in the statesman's 
life. Moore, personally courageous, was constitutionally 



ii8 George Canning 

desponding. He was hopeless of success in the enter- 
prise which had been entrusted to him, and Canning, 
knowing Moore's feeling on the subject, saw in this 
anticipation of disaster the prophecy of its accomplish- 
ment. ' Eemember, my lord,' said Moore, on his set- 
ting out, to Castlereagh, who was War Minister, ' I 
protest against the expedition and foretell its failure.' 
On Castlereagh's repeating this in the Cabinet, Can- 
ning's indignation broke forth : ' Good God ! and do 
you really mean to say that you allowed a man enter- 
taining such feelings with regard to the expedition to 
go out and assume the command of it ? ' After the 
Convention of Cintra, which restored to him forces, 
arms, and wealth which might have been annihilated, 
and in the absence of Sir Arthur Wellesley, who had 
kept the Irish Office while he was in Portugal, Napoleon 
was proceeding from victory to victory in Spain. Sir 
John Moore, waiting for men from England, was in- 
active. Canning's impatience was extreme. His friend 
Hookham Frere, who was now accredited as British 
Minister to the Central Junta in Spain, called on Moore 
to advance on Madrid, confident in his being able to 
make himself master of the city before the French 
could get there. Moore obeyed in the hopeless and 
foreboding spirit which seems to have now taken pos- 
session of him. ' I mean,' said Moore, ' to proceed 
bridle in hand, for if the bubble bursts and Madrid 
falls we shall have to run for it.' The bubble burst, 
Madrid fell, and Sir John Moore began his retreat to 
Corunna, harassed by the gathering and combined forces 
of Napoleon and Soult. He effected his retreat skilfully, 
and secured the embarkation of his troops, and, as all 



The Portland Administration 119 

the world kiioAVS, fell liiniself in a^ deatli liappier tlian 
his recent fortunes had been, or than his future life 
possibly would have been if he had survived. 
The prophecy in Wolfe's lines — 

Little they'll reck of the spirit that's gone, 
And o'er his coldashes upbraid him — 

like most prophecies, was descriptive, and was pro- 
bably suggested by Canning's language and his atti- 
tude towards the slain hero. Canning thought Moore 
might have succeeded where he failed, and he defended 
Hookham Frere's summons of him to ^ladrid, which 
Sir William Napier, in his ' History of the Peninsular 
War,' has denounced as dictated by ' weakness, arro- 
gance, levity, and ignorance.' A newspaper poet in the 
' British Press,' parodying Campbell's ' Hohenlinden ' 
in ' The Battle of Putney,' as he calls the duel between 
Castlereagh and Canning, refers to Canning's possible 
fate and Moore's : — 

But if he falls, will e'er he meet 
A nation's woe, that solace sweet, 
When he beneath the winding-sheet 
Has stabbed a soldier's memory % 

The appointment, due to Canning's agency, of Sir 
Arthur Wellesley to the chief command in the Penin- 
sula, and the nomination of his brother, the Marquis 
Wellesley, as British Minister to the Junta, set a new 
face on matters military and civil. Wellington won 
battle after battle, and Wellesley contributed to the 
political reorganisation of Spain. Encouraged by the 
head which was being made against Napoleon, "Austria 
plucked tip heart, and for the fourth time took up arms 



120 George Canning 

against France. In order to effect a diversion on her 
behalf the expedition to the Scheldt was determined 
on, and Lord Chatham, as if to give him an oppor- 
tunity of showing that he combined military with 
political incapacity, was placed at its head. It is un- 
necessary to tell the heartrending story of mismanage- 
ment and failure, of fever and pestilence. The lines 
often quoted, and almost as often misquoted, in which 
the attitude of the two British commanders is described, 
are as truly historic as anything in Caesar or Napier. 
They were printed first in the ' Morning Chronicle ' of 
February 6, 1810, as 'an abstract and brief chronicle 
of the documents and evidence concerning the expedi- 
tion to the Scheldt : ' — 

Lord Chatham, with his sword undrawn, 

Kept waiting for Sir Richard Strachan, 

Sir Richard, eager to be at 'em, 

Kept waiting too, — for whom ? Lord Chatham. 

Canning showed during his first tenure of high 
office the qualities of a great Foreign Minister and a 
great War Minister. The seizure of the Danish fleet, 
technically brigandage, was a splendid audacity of 
patriotism. To Canning, too, the glory belongs of 
seeing that France was to be conquered in Spain, and 
of equipping the conquei'or for his task. Canning, 
Wellington, the Peninsular War ; Castlereagh, Chatham 
(the Second), the Walcheren expedition : these names 
are decisive of the controversy between the political 
rivals. 



121 



CHAPTER XV. 

CANNING, CASTLEREAGH, AND PERCEVAL. 

Canning, long before tlie organisation of humiliation 
at Walcheren, had come to the conclusion that Lord 
Castlereagh had not the qualities necessary in a War 
Minister. In a letter to the Duke of Portland he said 
that a change either in his own department or in that of 
Castlereagh was essential, and that he might be him- 
self no obstacle to the change he offered to resign. 
But there can be no doubt that the Duke of Portland 
correctly described his real motive, when writing to 
Lord Eldon he said : ' The great object, and indeed the 
sine quel non, with Canning is to take from Lord Castle- 
reagh the conduct of the war.' The Duke of Portland 
was vacillation and timidity itself. He hated a broil, 
and while promising to communicate Canning's pro 
posal to Castlereagh through Lord Camden, Castle- 
reagh's uncle, both he and Camden kept silence about 
the matter. Canning's project was that Lord Wellesley 
should be War Minister and that Castlereagh should 
have some other Cabinet post. This scheme was 
assented to by the King, and communicated to Lord 
Camden, to Lord Eldon, and to Lord Bathurst, but 
not to Lord Castlereagh, to whom, however. Canning 
thought that it had been made known. jSTothing 
was done, and Canning grew tired of waiting. He 



122 George Canning 

spoke to George Rose and tlie Speaker (Abbot) on 
the subject. The Duke of Portland, gathering pro- 
bably that the matter was being stirred, took Perceval, 
then leader of the House of Commons, into his con- 
fidence. The Walcheren expedition was then being 
organised and was on the point of execution, and 
Perceval thought that the superintendence of it could 
not properly or safely be withdrawn from Castlereagh's 
hands. He wrote to Canning in this sense, and 
Canning, while protesting against complicity in the 
jDast concealment, and denying knowledge until a cer- 
tain date that there had been concealment, acquiesced 
in an adjournment of the matter till the Scheldt expe- 
dition was over. This personal controversy was com- 
plicated by another. The declining physical and 
mental health of the Duke of Portland made his speedy 
resignation of the Premiership inevitable. Perceval 
and Canning discussed the matter of the succession to 
Portland with great freedom and minuteness, Canning 
insisting on his own claim not in so many words, but 
advancing to it by a series of steps. ' There must,' he 
wrote to Perceval, ' be a Minister ' — the Duke of Port- 
land having been only a dummy or phantasm-Minister 
— ' that Minister must be in the House of Commons ; he 
must be either you (Perceval) or myself (Canning) ' 
— Castlereagh, apparently, not being to be thought of, 
thouo-h that would have solved the War Office diffi- 
culty — ' and if I can j^revent it it shall not,' Canning 
added in effect, '• be you.' ' I am not so presumptuous as 
to expect that you should acquiesce in that choice falling 
on me. On the other hand, I hope and trust that you 
will not consider it as anv want of esteem and kind- 



Canning, Castlereagh, and Perceval 123 

ness on my port (than wliicli I do assure you nothing, 
&c.) if I should not think it possible to remain in 
office under the change which would instantly be pro- 
duced in my situation by the appointment of a First 
Minister in the House of Commons — even in your 
person.' Perceval replied, modestly enough, that nothing 
could be more natural than that Canning should desire 
his great personal superiority to be officiall}^ marked. 
Still Perceval could not acquiesce in his own re- 
moval from his present office and situation — the Chan- 
cellorship of the Exchequer with leadership of the 
House of Commons. All things considered, the nomi- 
nation of a third person was in his view preferable to 
the breaking up of the Government. Canning himself 
had at one time pointed to Lord Chatham as the man 
under whom he would be prepared to serve. But Lord 
Chatham was coming home disgraced by the failure of 
the Walcheren expedition. Canning not unjustly saw 
in the breakdown a confirmation of his opinion as to 
the necessity of removing Lord Castlereagh from the 
War Office, and wrote to the Duke of Portland insist- 
ing that the time had come for the King to give effect 
to his promise to call Lord Wellesley to that depart- 
ment. The Duke saw Canning, and proposed that 
simultaneously with his resignation of the Treasury 
Castlereagh should be shifted to some other office than 
the War Department. This was what w^as at first in- 
tended, and Canning acquiesced. But he was bent on 
being First Minister, and, this being out of the ques- 
tion, he felt bound to ask the Duke to convey with his 
resignation Canning's own also. He absented himself 
from the next Cabinet — in the circumstances of the case 



124 George Canning 

a critical one. Castlereagli was puzzled, and inquired 
tlie reason. The wliole secret came out. Lord Camden 
told Castlereagli what he ought to have told him 
months before. 

Canning wrote once more to the Duke of Portland, 
admitting that, while he could not consent to serve 
under Perceval, he could even less expect Perceval 
to reverse the relations which had existed between 
them by serving under him, and expressing the greatest 
personal goodwill to him. But whether he (Perceval) 
or any third person was to be First Minister, anything, 
he said, would be better than a ' Government of com- 
promise, of uncertain preponderance and divided respon- 
sibility.' Canning's conduct has been denounced as 
treacherous. But he had openly declared to Perceval his 
pretensions to the post of First Minister, and the fact 
that he suggested to one friend that Perceval might be 
Lord President with a peerage and the Chancellorship 
of the Duchy for life, and to another — the Duke of 
Portland — that he might be Lord Chancellor, do not 
seem enormities of bad faith. This last proposal the 
Duke innocently made known to Lord Eldon, ' who 
was outrageous at it.' It accounts for the almost 
^'enomous hatred which breaks out whenever, in his 
letters, Eldon mentions Canning's name. Perceval 
could not be forced into the House of Lords if he did 
not want to go there. He had given up law for politics 
— the Attorney-Generalship for the Chancellorship of 
the Exchequer — with regret, and he might conceivably 
have been desirous of a position independent of political 
accidents. However this may be, the arrangement 
proposed by Canning had nothing wicked in it, and 
might quite conceivably have been the basis of an 



C.1NN/XG, Castlereagh, axd Perceval 125 

accommodation. A certain want of delicacy and nice 
scruple may, perhaps, be imputed to Canning in his 
relations witli both Perceval and Castlereagh now, as 
with Grenville and Addington before, but of direct 
treachery and bad faith there is no evidence or even 
reasonable suspicion. 

Castlereagh, while admitting Canning's right to 
demand his removal if he thought that the public 
interest required it, impugned as unfair and dishonour- 
able the secrecy which had been observed. But the 
secrecy was not Canning's, but Portland's and Camden's. 
A challenge was sent by Castlereagh under conditions 
which even the then recognised code of duelling 
honour held insufficient, and was accepted by Canning. 
The antagonists met at Wimbledon, Lord Castlereagh 
being accompanied by Lord Yarmouth (afterwards the 
Marquis of Hertford), Mr. Canning by Mr. Charles 
Ellis (afterwards Lord Seaforth), who was so nervous 
that he could not load Canning's pistol. The first 
exchange of shots was harmless. Li the second, Mr. 
Canning was struck in the thigh. The dangerous 
accuracy of his own aim was proved, it is said, by his 
shooting a button off Lord Castlereagh's coat as he 
stood sideways. The contemporary bard of ' The 
Battle of Putney ' thus sung the encounter :— 

On Putney, when the sun was low, 
The misty vapours, hovering slow, 
We mark'd the chariot rattling go, 
Of Canning driving rapidly. 

But Putney saw a stranger sight, 
When Castlereagh burst forth to light. 
Who came clean-handed forth to fight 
His former friend's sincerity. 



126 George Cannl\g 

The seconds fixed the rivals' place, 
Each statesman seized the deadly case, 
And one had laughed to see the face 
Of Ellis, grinning horridly. 

The dreaded sign the seconds gave. 

But Doodle hit not Noodle grave. 

And Noodle's shot at Doodle brave 

Whisked by right harmlessly. 

But once again must Putney's heath 
Re-echo back the arms of death ; 
But ne'er before did History's breath 
E-ecord such deep duplicity. 

'Tis true that not their country's weal, 
Or monarch's honour could unsteel 
Or make the rancorous bosom feel 
Of either Secretary. 

The signal droj^s, the bullets fly ; 
' Haste, Ellis, haste, nay, do not cry, 
He yet may roll the poet's eye, 
And still may feed his relatives.' 

The last line contains a taunt, which was the 
commonplace of the satirists and libellers of the period, 
from Peter Pindar downwards, on the most honourable 
feature of Canning's life — his constant affection for his 
mother and his devoted attention to her, shown not 
simply in gifts but in assiduous personal cares. 



127 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE PERCEVAL MINISTRY — CANNING OUT OF OFFICE. 

The Government had lost its head m Portland and 
its right and left hand in Canning and Castlereagh. 
The resignation of Canning's friends, Leveson-Gower, 
Sturges Bourne, Huskisson, Rose, and Long — the four 
latter the business men of the Ministry, as Lord Eldon 
described them — followed, though George Rose after- 
wards changed his mind. Canning, in a conversation 
with the King, which his Majesty described as the 
most extraordinary he had ever borne part in, while 
pointing to the formation of a Government under 
Perceval as the most rational course to adopt, had 
offered to undertake the task should his Majesty be 
pleased to lay his commands upon him. The offer was 
not accepted. 

After unsuccessful negotiations with Lord Grey and 
Lord Grenville, the Cabinet advised the King at once 
to fill up the office of First Lord of the Treasury, and 
Lord Eldon was authorised to express orally to his 
Majesty the unanimous opinion of his colleagues that 
the new Minister ought to be in the House of Commons. 
This was in so many words to designate Mr. Perceval, 
since Canning and Castlereagh, his only possible rivals, 
were out of the question. 



128 George Canning 

Mi\ Perceval was thus entrusted with the task of 
reconstructing the Administration. After offering the 
Chancellorship of the Exchequer in succession to Robert 
Milnes, Lord Palmerston, George Rose, Vansittart, and 
Charles Long, who all refused it, Perceval was con- 
strained to keep it himself, in conjunction with the 
First Lordship of the Treasury. The Cabinet received 
only one notable addition, and that was scarcely a 
gain : the Marquis Wellesley became Foreign Secre- 
tary in succession to Canning. Lord Liverpool went 
to the War and Colonial Office in lieu of Lord 
Castlereagh ; and Richard Ryder, a brother of the 
Lord Harrowby of that day, took the place of Lord 
Liverpool at the Home Office. Lord Palmerston be- 
came Secretary at AVar in succession to Lord G. 
Leveson-Gower, but without a seat in the Cabinet. The 
appointment of Lord Wellesley was rather a surprise 
to Canning, by w^hom he had been sent as British 
Minister to Spain. Wellesley considered his tenure of 
this office conditional on Canning remaining Foreign 
Secretary, and had left his resignation in Canning's 
hands, to be tendered by him in the event of his own 
resignation. Canning presented them both to the 
King, and recommended Hookham Frere as Wellesley's 
successor in Madrid. If these steps were taken, as 
Canning's enemies alleged, without the cognisance and 
consent of the colleagues from whom he was parting, 
they perhaps involve a little sharp practice. The tables 
were turned upon him. Learning from the King what 
had happened, Perceval arranged that the vessel which 
carried to Wellesley the news of Canning's resignation 
and of his own release from his diplomatic post at 



The Perceval Ministry 129 

Madrid should bring him the offer of the Secretary- 
ship of State, which Canning had quitted. Wellesley 
promptly accepted it. 

Without being either orator or statesman, Perceval 
was a good man of business and a dexterous debater ; 
but his only Cabinet colleagues in the Commons, Yorke 
and liyder, were ineffective. A vote of censure on 
Lord Chatham's conduct as commander of the Scheldt 
expedition was followed rather tardily, and under pres- 
sure, by his resignation of the office of Master-General 
of the Ordnance. This resignation led to a new effort 
to strengthen the Perceval Cabinet. Lord Wellesley 
proposed that overtures should be made to Canning, 
Sidmouth, and Castlereagh. To make room for them 
Lord Camden was ready to give up the Privy Seal, 
Ryder the Home Office, and Perceval himself the 
Chancellorship of the Exchequer. But Sidmouth ob- 
stinately refused to sit in the same Cabinet with 
Canning, and Wellesley would not hear of Sidmouth 
and Castlereagh without Canning. The Government 
was, therefore, fain to patch up the vacancies as best it 
could, and to blunder on as it had been doing. Lord 
Mulgrave succeeded Lord Chatham at the Ordnance 
Office, and Charles Yorke took the Admiralty from 
Lord Mulgrave. 

Canning was not very active in debate in the session 
of 1810. Besides the speeches to which a reference has 
been made, he spoke energetically in favour of the grant 
to Sir Arthur Wellesley, who had been raised to the 
peerage as Viscount Wellington after the battle of 
Talavera, and supported Sir Samuel Romilly's effort for 
the release of Gale Jones, imprisoned for the publication 

K 



130 George Canning 

of a placard offensive to the House of Commons. He 
spoke in favour of Mr. Bankes' motion against sinecures, 
wliicli by liis aid was carried against the Government, 
and led to the appointment of a Committee. Feeling 
bound, perhaps, not to promote a measure which had 
already disturbed the reason of the King, he opposed 
Grattan's motion in favour of Eoman Catholic relief. 
In speaking in favour of the vote of credit for which the 
Government asked, he surveyed the field of war and of 
policy, retrospectively justifying his own measures as 
Foreign Minister, and carefully separating his support 
of the Executive Governmeut, as the Executive Govern- 
ment, from the question of personal confidence. 

The close of the year 1810 was marked by the 
constantly returning trouble of George III.'s life. In 
October of that year his mental faculties again gave 
way. Domestic distress had, no doubt, hastened this 
affliction. In 1809, the Duke of York, his favourite 
son, had been forced to resign the Commandership-in- 
Chief of the Army in circumstances of scandal painful 
to the rigid morality of the King, though the charge 
of venality broke down. In 1810, the murder of the 
Duke of Cumberland's valet, Stella, made that unpopular 
Prince the mark of grave imputations. The illness of 
the Princess Amelia, and the anxiety which it occa- 
sioned the King, seem, however, to ^have been the 
proximate cause of the returning malady. His reason 
gave way before her life. The first business of Parlia- 
ment, which met on November 1, was to pass a Regency 
Bill. Mr. Perceval's measure was a reproduction of 
that proposed by Mr. Pitt in 1788. It conferred the 
Eeo-ency upon the Prince of Wales, but subject to the 



■ The Perceval Ministry 131 

restrictions wliicli lie had intensely resented twenty 
3'ears before, and wliicli, imposed by the English 
Parliament, and refused by the Irish, might, but for 
the King's recovery, have raised the question of the 
Parliamentary Union twelve years before it actually 
emerged. The old "Whig contention, or rather the 
anti-Whig contention of the Fox Whigs of that year, 
that the Prince had an hereditary right to the Regency, 
independent of parliamentary nomination, was now 
renewed, but without much vigour. The restrictions 
on the creation of peers and the control given to the 
Queen over the royal household, on which Mr. Pitt 
had insisted, were maintained by Perceval. Mr. Canning 
asserted with emphasis Pitt's doctrine of the control of 
Parliament, but demurred to the necessity of its beino- 
exercised in the same way. The principle^ sound in 
1788 was equally sound in 1810 and for all time, but 
the mode of enforcing it was a question of present cir- 
cumstance and convenience, not involving principle and 
independent of precedent. Now, he contended, the need 
was urgent of a strong Executive Government, which 
the restrictions proposed would unduly fetter. The 
Bill was carried, the limitations which it imposed being 
made valid for twelve months onh^, within which period 
the chance of the King's recovery would, it was thought, 
have been determined. If he were restored to health, 
it was important that he should find things much as he 
had left them. When his restoration was shown to 
be hopeless the need for restriction would disappear. 
The Prince of Wales was very angry. He thought of 
dismissing Perceval, and he entered into negotiations 
with Grey and Grenville ; but the possibility of his 

K 2 



132 George Canning 

father's recovery determined liim to leave tlie present 
Ministers in power. 

When the King's ilhiess broke out, Perceval saw 
the necessity of endeavouring to strengthen his weak 
Government against emergencies, and again opened ne- 
gotiations with Canning, Castlereagh, and Sidmouth. 
Lord Castlereagh declined to enter the Ministry on any 
terms ; Sidmouth was still irreconcilable with Canning, 
who alone, it was held, would attract more hostility than 
support to the Government, especially on the part of 
the Sidmouth Tories. Thus the negotiations broke 
down. The commercial distress of 1810 had led to an 
inquiry into the effects of an inconvertible paper cur- 
rency. A committee was appointed in that year called 
the Bullion Committee. The report, drawn up by Mr. 
Horner, the chairman, recommended a return to cash 
payments in two years. Mr. Canning had been a 
member of this committee, and had closely attended to 
its proceedings. He spoke in the House of Commons 
on certain resolutions brought forward by Mr. Horner, 
based on the report of the committee, and again on 
certain counter-resolutions brought forward by Mr. 
Vansittart. His speeches, in which he showed his 
conversance with the sagacious currency doctrines, as 
afterwards with the free-trade jDrinciples, of his friend 
Huskisson, are recognised alike by men of business and 
theorists as masterpieces of exposition, argument, and 
illustration. Canning, while, hoAvever, he accepted the 
principles of the bullionists, to which Peel, then their 
opponent, afterwards became a convert, held that 
Parliament was bound to adhere to its contract with 
the Bank, deferring the resumption of cash payments 



The Perceval Ministry 133 

until six years after tlie termination of the war. Tlie 
depreciation of Bank notes was due to an excessive 
issue of them, but a sudden contraction might be 
equally injurious ; and the true course to be taken 
was, by the assertion of sound doctrines, to prepare the 
way for a return to them in practice. Horner's reso- 
lutions were rejected ; A^ansittart's, which embodied all 
the currency fallacies of the time, were passed. 

On February 18, 1812, the restrictions imposed on 
the Prince Regent by the Regency Bill expired, and it 
was thought that he would signalise his independence 
by summoning his old Whig friends to office. On 
February 13 the Prince had written a letter to the 
Duke of York, in which, announcing that he had ^ no 
predilections to indulge, no resentments to gratify,' he 
practically intimated his intention of keeping Mr. 
Perceval's Cabinet in power, though desiring that some 
of liis early friends might join the Administration, 
naming especially Lord Grenville and Lord Grey. The 
two Whig lords declined office on the ground of incom- 
patibility of political opinion with Perceval . On hearing 
of this result. Lord Wellesley tendered his resignation, 
and the seals of the Foreign Office were placed in the 
hands of Lord Castlereagh. Lord Sidmouth was ap- 
pointed Lord Privy Seal in succession to Lord Camden, 
who remained in the Cabinet without office. 

Canning does not seem to have borne any part in 
these projects. It must be admitted that, if he was 
an intriguer, he was a very unlucky one. Perceval, 
against whom he had pitted his own pretensions to 
be First Minister, had gained, and seemed firmly 
established in that post ; Castlereagh had stepped into 



134 George Canning 

tlie office of Foreign Minister, wliicli Canning liad lield, 
and would liave sacrificed years of liis life to hold again 
at a time so critical. The much-ridiculed ' doctor ' 
was in place. Canning was wandering disconsolate 
among the back benches of the House of Commons. 
To him the end of life was Parliament, and the end of 
Parliament was office. A parody of Gray's ' Elegy in 
a Country Churchyard' describes his demeanour and 
artifices : — 

For who to dumb forgetfulness a prey 
A place or pension ever yet resigned ; 

Quitted the Court, like Canning, as they say, 
Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind ? 

On some tried hack at parting he relies, 

Some well-turned paragraph his case requires ; 

E'en in retirement we hear his cries. 
E'en in our paper linger his desires. 



Haply some hoary pensioner may say. 

Oft have we seen him at the approach of eve, 

Bending with hasty steps his course this way 
To make a speech would even us deceive. 

There, underneath the House of Commons' clock. 
That rears its vile old-fashioned head so high. 

How often would he his late colleagues mock. 
And at that distance catch the Speaker's eye. 

From seat to seat, as if in pain or scorn, 
Mutt'ring his wayward fancies would he rove ; 

Aud, out of office, seem like one forlorn. 

Or craz'd with care, or cross'd in hopeless love. 



135 



CHAPTER XVII. 

ASSASSINATION OF MR. PERCEVAL— FORMATION OF THE 
LIVERPOOL ADMINISTRATION. 

The bullet of the assassin brought Perceval's political 
and natural life to a close at the same moment. On 
May 11, 1812, he was shot clown in the lobby of the 
House of Commons by Bellingham, a ruined tradesman, 
maddened by misfortune and by grievances which, so 
far as they were real, no Government could redress. 

The difficulties which had confronted the Cabinet 
on the retirement of the Duke of Portland beset it once 
more. Hopeless of support from Lord Grenville and 
Lord Grey, Ministers opened negotiations with Lord 
Wellesley and Mr. Canning, who refused to join them 
— Canning because of their unwillingness to concede 
the lioman Catholic claims, Wellesley on this ground, 
and also because of their want of vigour in prosecuting 
the Spanish war. According to Lord Eldon, the 
overtures were not sincere. Wellesley and Canning 
might ' bite ' or not. If they did not, yet to have 
offered them office would strengthen the Government 
in public opinion, and it could go on without them. 
But it was brought up short by a resolution promptly 
carried in the House of Commons, by a majority of 
four, on the motion of Mr. Stuart-Wortley, for an 



136 George Canning 

address to the Prince llegent, praying liini to take 
steps for the formation of a strong and efficient Admi- 
nistration. Ministers tendered their resignation, and 
the Marquis Wellesley was entrusted with the task of 
forming a new Government. Through Canning he 
sounded Lord Liverpool — who, though not formally the 
chief of the retiring Ministry, seems to have acted for 
it — as to the willingness of himself and his friends 
to join some Government based on the concession of 
Catholic claims and pledged to a strenuous prosecution 
of the war. The overture, which implied in the latter 
condition a censure as regards the past, and in the • 
former an abandonment of the well-known principles 
of the majority of the Government, was refused. It 
cannot have been seriously made. Simultaneously with 
this application through Canning to Lord Liverpool, 
Wellesley addressed himself in person to Grey and 
Grenville. After protracted negotiations, in which the 
"Whig lords insisted on a direct invitation from the 
Prince Kegent, and on freedom to deal with the house- 
hold offices, and in the later course of which Lord Moira 
took the place of Lord Wellesley, they too declined. 
According to Canning, the real objection of the Whig 
chiefs was to the Prince Kegent's pretensions to choose 
his own Ministers. In a debate in the House of 
Commons upon these negotiations, he attributed to 
them in so many words the doctrine ' that the great 
families and connections of this countr}^ had a right to 
interfere in the nomination of Ministers,' and em- 
phatically refused to admit ' any such right or preten- 
sion in the aristocracy.' The choice of Ministers, he 
said, belonged to the Crown, subject, of course, to the 



ASSASS/A^JT/ON OF Mr. PeRCEVAL 1 37 

control and advice of a free Parliament. The Prince 
Regent, whose conduct in this matter was not ostensibly 
open to blame, was now at his wits' end. He had 
recourse at last to a strange expedient. He asked the 
Cabinet to choose their own First Minister. Their 
choice fell upon the Earl of Liverpool, who remained 
in office for fifteen years. 

Lord Liverpool's first act on receiving his commis- 
sion from the King was to address himself to Mr. 
Canning. Castlereagh was magnanimously willing to 
yield the Foreign Office, and it was proposed that Lord 
Wellesley should go to Ireland as Lord Lieutenant. 
Canning described this offer as perhaps the handsomest 
that was ever made to any individual. But it was pro- 
posed that the leadership of the House of Commons, 
with the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer, should 
be in Castlereagh's hands, and it required a longer time 
of exile from office to make any but the first place in 
that assembly endurable by him. He consented to 
hold afterwards a post very inferior to that now within 
his grasp. But he had not yet acquired the proper 
mood of submission. ' How striking,' Wilberforce 
moralises in his ' Diary/ ' is Canning's example ! Had 
he fairly joined Perceval on the Duke of Portland's 
death, as Perceval offered, he would now have been 
acknowledged head, and supported as such. But his 
ambitious policy threw him out, and he sunk infinitely 
in public estimation, and has since with difficulty kept 
buoyant.' Canning, according to Stapleton, was wil- 
ling to acquiesce in Castlereagh's having the leader- 
ship. ' The point was referred to three members of 
the House of Commons, who were supposed to be par- 



13S George Cannixg 

ticularly conversant with the usages of the House ; they 
decided that he ought to insist on the lead, and the 
negotiation fell to the ground.' It is obvious, however, 
that the ' usages of the House ' have nothing to do with 
the matter. Canning himself, in a speech which he 
made at Liverpool this very year, states that the pro- 
posal was rejected because, in his own view as well as 
in that of his friends, it was accompanied by conditions 
which he could not honourably accept. Writing to 
Wilberforce, he took yet other ground. It was not 
that he insisted on the leadership, or that his friends 
insisted, contrary to his OAvn view, on his not taking 
office without it, but that he could not take the second 
place without incurring suspicion of intriguing for the 
first. ' I will venture to affirm,' he says, ' that no 
offer on my part to reject for myself or to reserve for 
Lord C. the station of command would have prevented 
him from saying in three weeks that I was studiously 
labouring to deprive him of it. Pray, therefore, be not 
led astray, nor let others where you can help it, by the 
notion that I have been squabbling about a trifle.' But 
even in the compass of the same letter he is unable to 
be consistent. The followins: sentence shows that he 
was resolved not to take office with the lead of the 
House of Commons in Castlereagh's hands, and that, 
though he would have tried, he would probably have 
failed to bring himself to acquiesce in any third person 
having it. ' If I could have placed this power fairly 
in medio I would have conquered, or endeavoured to 
conquer, all my other feelings of reluctance; but to 
place it, and to engage to maintain it in his hands 
where it now is, and then to place myself under it, 



The Liverpool Administration 139 

would have been not only a sacrifice of pride but an 
extinction of utility.' It is not probable, however, that 
at this time the House of Commons would have accepted 
Canning's leadership. Castlereagh now, as Perceval 
before, was regarded as a safer man than Canning. It 
would not be fair to apply Canning's own contrast 
between ' placeless proud ability ' and the ' statesman 
all civility, whom moderate talents raise to fame,' to 
this controversy. It was not Canning's genius which 
was disliked, but his imputed duplicity. It was not 
the mediocrity of Perceval and Castlereagh which 
won the confidence of the House of Commons, but 
their recognised integrity. Canning was regarded as 
an unscrupulous intriguer and audacious adventurer, 
Perceval and Castlereagh as men of unblemished and 
disinterested character. Their moral authority in 
council, in the House of Commons, and with the 
country was greater than his. Canning was misjudged, 
largely if not entirely ; but his conduct during the past 
ten years, since Addington's accession to office, gave 
some basis, and yet more plausibility, to the judgment. 
Four years later, after the somewhat ignominious 
embassy to Lisbon, he took office under conditions 
more wounding to his vanity than those which he now 
rejected with scorn, contenting himself with the Presi- 
dency of the Board of Control, while Castlereagh led 
the House as Foreign Secretary. Yet six years later 
he sought an escape, happily not granted him, from 
English politics in the Governor-Generalship of India. 
Castlereagh's melancholy death saved him from this 
splendid exile, restoring to him the Foreign Office, and 
giving him at fifty-two the leadership of the House of 



140 George Canning 

Commons, wliich lie had deemed his right twelve years 
before. He became First Minister in 1827. He had 
declined office without the Premiership in 1809. With 
less haste Canning would have made greater progress. 
If he had manoeuvred less he would much sooner have 
gained more. The lines in whicli Moore comments on 
the demand for further reinforcements for Wellington- 
in the Peninsula, and proposes to despatch politicians 
thither, express the common idea of the fortunes and 
character of the rival statesmen : 

Castlereagh in our sieges might save some disgraces, 
Being used to the taking and keeping of places ; 
And volunteer Canning, still ready for joining, 
Might show us his talent for sly undermining. 

. It is curious how this suspicion of Canning's good 
faith haunted him through public life, expressing itself 
in the misgivings of his friends not less than in the 
mingled hatred and contempt of his enemies. Pitt, Lord 
Malmesbury, and Wilberforce shake their heads over his 
disposition to manoeuvre. Sturges Bourne, the perfect 
model of an uj)right, fair-minded Englishman, adheres 
to him, but deplores his trickiness. Lady Hester 
Stanhope charges him at the commencement of his 
political life with habitually sending to the newspapers 
what he heard from Mr. Pitt in confidential talk. Lord 
Shaftesbury, in his Diary, May 29, 1827, has this 
entry : ' Met Peel : he told me every syllable relating 
to Canning's intrigues.' Canning was honest and 
patriotic, but he stood alone, and he believed too much 
in the arts of manasrement. 



141 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

FOUR YEARS OUT OF OFFICE. 

During the first four years of the Liverpool Adiuiiiis- 
tration, with a break occasioned by the incident of the 
Lisbon Embassy, Mr. Canning's position was that of a 
private member of Parliament. On one question, on 
which he felt strongly, the confirmed insanity of the 
King had released him from restrictions as galling as 
those from which the Prince Regent had escaped. He 
had assented, after 1801, to the rule of action laid down 
for himself by Pitt, and accepted by Fox in 1806, that 
the King, in the uncertain state of his mental health, 
should not be troubled by a revival of the Catholic 
claims. Nov/ that there was no likelihood of his re- 
covery. Canning felt himself relieved from this volun- 
tarily imposed obligation of silence. He and Lord 
Wellesley acted together in this matter. In June 
1812, Mr. Canning moved a resolution pledging the 
House of Commons ' early in the next session of 
Parliament to take into their consideration the laws 
affecting the Roman Catholics, with a view to their 
final and conciliatory adjustment.' The motion was 
passed by a majority of 129 — 235 against 106. In the 
House of Lords the j^revious question was carried 
against Lord Wellesley by a majority of only one. 



142 George Canning 

Lord Castlereagli's presence in the Cabinet left the 
subject an open one with the Government, and Mr. 
Canning's success did not endanger the Ministry. 

Parliament was dissolved in July. On September 25, 
1812, a number of gentlemen met at the Golden Lion 
Inn, Liverpool. Mr. John Gladstone, the father of the 
eminent statesman, then a child three years of age, 
moved a resolution, which was seconded by Mr. Eichard 
Benson, inviting Mr. Canning to become a candidate 
for the borough of Liverpool. Mr. Canning, who had sat 
for Newtown (Hants) in the Parliament of 1806, and for 
Hastings in 1807, afterward notified his acceptance 
of the invitation in a letter bearing date October 4. 
On October 7 he arrived in Liverpool, and the contest 
began in earnest. His opponents were Mr. Brougham, 
whose opposition to the Orders in Council recommended 
him to a commercial constituency, and Mr. Creevy, a 
member of Parliament well known in that day as the 
advocate of free trade with India. Mr. Canning stood 
with General Gascoigne. On the sixth day's poll Mr. 
Brougham and Mr. Creevy withdrew from the contest ; 
but the poll was kept open until the eighth day, when 
Mr. Canning and General Gascoigne were declared to 
be elected, Mr. Canning being at the head of the poll. 
He was also elected for Petersfield. In his speeches on 
the successive declarations of each day's polling, he pro- 
nounced himself, so far as general politics were con- 
cerned, in an emphatic manner against Parliamentary 
Reform — even denouncing afterwards, at a congratula- 
tory banquet in Manchester, the project of giving re- 
presentatives to that town — and in favour of the removal 
of the political disabilities of the Roman Catholics. 



Four Years Out of Office 143 

The new Parliament met at tlie close of November 
1812. It lasted till the year 1818. Mr. Canning spoke 
in February, 1813, in defence of the conduct of the 
Government in regard to the right of search and the 
institution, under the Orders in Council, of what was 
called a paper blockade, out of which the war with the 
United States had sprung. The controversy had begun 
while Mr. Canning held the seals of the Foreign Office. 
The United States had retorted upon France and 
England by passing the Non-Intercourse Act, which 
precluded trade between the Eepublic and the two 
belligerent powers so long as the Berlin and Milan 
decrees on the one hand, and the Orders in Council on 
the other, remained in force. In the meantime feeling 
on both sides had been embittered by the affair of the 
' Leopard ' and the ' Chesapeake,' in which the British 
claim to the right of search had been enforced by violent 
measures, involving loss of life. Mr. Canning had of- 
fered apologies and reparation for the indiscretion of the 
commander of the ' Leopard,' and set on foot negotiations 
for the re-establishment of friendly relations between 
the two countries. Mr. Erskine, the British Minister 
at Washington, misconceiving his instructions, accepted 
the proposal of the United States Government to with- 
draw the Non-Intercourse Act as regards England, on 
the condition of the British Government consenting to 
suspend the Orders as regards United States ships. He 
was disavowed and recalled ; Mr. Canning insisted on 
the belligerent right to prevent neutral trading with 
the enemy. He equally insisted on what was called the 
right of impressment — that is, of searching in time of war 
American vessels for British seamen who had deserted 



144 George Canxixg 

the service of their own country. The former principle, 
which was valid in international law when Mr. Canning 
contended for it, was abolished, so far as the parties 
to the Treaty of Paris are concerned, by the declara- 
tion of 1 85G, which allows a neutral flag to cover 
enemy's goods while exempting neutral goods under an 
enemy's flag from capture — excepting, in both cases, 
contraband of war. This, however, was not the inter- 
national law nor the national opinion of Mr. Canning's 
days. After many irritating incidents, war was de- 
clared by the United States in June 1812. As a ]3rivate 
member Mr. Canning defended the course which he had 
taken in office and that followed by his successors. 

In 1813 Mr. Canning gave his support to the measure 
introduced by Mr. Grattan for removing Roman Catholic 
disabilities. He endeavoured to disarm j^nblic alarm 
by a fantastic scheme for appointing a commission of 
Roman Catholic notables and Protestant privy coun- 
cillors, associated with a Secretary of State in England 
and the Chief Secretary in Ireland, to whom all bulls 
and other documents were to be communicated, under 
pain of banishment, by those receiving them ; and who 
were to testify to the loyalty of persons nominated to 
Roman Catholic bishoprics. The Bill was defeated on 
the motion of the Speaker (Mr. Abbot) in Committee 
— Speakers in Committee in those days recovered their 
freedom of speech and action as members of Parliament 
— by 251 against 247 votes, and was withdrawn. The 
Bill for throwing open the India trade to the public 
preserved to the East India Company the monopoly of 
the China trade for twenty years. Mr. Canning, repre- 
senting the commercial interests of Liverpool and the 



Four Years Out of Office 145 

commercial principles of Mr. Pitt, did not venture to 
do more than move (unsuccessfully) the reduction of the 
term of the China monopoly to ten years. He sup- 
ported Lord Castlereagh's motion of thanks to "Welling- 
ton (now Marquis) for the victory at Vittoria in July ; 
and in November spoke in favour of the grant of three 
millions to his Majesty for the purpose of carrying out 
the provisions of the foreign treaties. 

In the election for Liverpool Mr. Canning had 
strongly asserted his individual independence ; in the 
House of Commons, when he had been returned, he 
was soon made aware of his personal isolation. Lord 
Castlereagh, in spite of his halting and incoherent 
speech, commanded the confidence of the House by 
dint of character and administrative capacity. His 
triumph over his more eloquent and brilliant rival was 
complete. Canning practically gave up the struggle. 
He renounced concerted action with Lord Wellesley. 
He formally disbanded his party, bidding them, accord- 
ing to Whitbread's ungenerous rendering of his con- 
duct, to shift for themselves ; really telling them not to 
adhere to his broken fortunes. The party was not very 
numerous. According to Lord Dudley, it dined 14 
and voted 12. The more important of them were 
absorbed into the Administration, Huskisson becoming 
First Commissioner of Woods, or, as it was then called, 
Land Revenue, without a seat in the Cabinet, and 
Sturges Bourne taking a place at the Board of 
Control. 

Political disappointment and impatience of his 
position in Parliament led Mr. Canning to commit 
what he afterwards spoke of as the greatest mistake of 



14^ George Canning 

liis life — tlie acceptance of a special embassy to Lisbon. 
Tlie ill-liealtli of liis eldest son bad determined liim to 
go tliitber in a private character. The Prince Regent 
was expected to visit Portugal from Brazil, and it 
occurred to the Ministry that the presence in Lisbon of 
Mr. Canning would enable them, if he wore invested 
with the rank of ambassador, to give the welcome of 
England to the Prince through a statesman of Euro- 
pean reputation invested with the highest diplomatic 
office. Doubtless they were inspired also by the desire 
to act with civility and courtesy to Mr. Canning. The 
Prince Regent, however, did not come to Portugal. 
Mr. Canning's conduct in taking the embassy was 
attacked on his return to England by Mr. Lambton and 
Sir Francis Burdett, especially on the ground of the 
additional pecuniary expense incurred in his appoint- 
ment. Mr. Canning's reply was admitted by Mr. 
Lambton to be satisfactory, but he had placed himself 
in a somewhat equivocal and derogatory position. He 
had the faculty of putting himself in equivocal posi- 
tions. While he was playing at public business in a 
second-rate capital of Europe, Castlereagh was direct- 
ing the foreign affairs of the country with a success 
which was mainly due, no doubt, to Wellington's 
military genius, but which made him ^politically the 
foremost man in England and before Europe. 

Canning resigned his Lisbon Embassy as soon as 
he learned that the Prince Regent was not coming 
thither ; but he remained in Lisbon six months longer, 
bringing up his voluntary exile to seventeen months. 
During these seventeen months much had happened. 
Napoleon had escaped from Elba, Waterloo had been 



Four Years Out o-f Office 147 

fought, the Congress of Vienna, in which Castlereagh 
had re23resented England, had settled Euroj^e after its 
own fashion. It must have been bitter to Canning to 
reflect that, but for his own imprudence, he would 
probably have been the Minister who would have played 
the chief part in these great transactions. With his 
personal regret the conviction, no doubt, mingled that, 
if he had not forfeited his rank in the councils of the 
nation, a more just, generous, and durable arrangement 
might have been arrived at. 

On his return to England Mr. Canning resumed 
his place in Parliament. He had offered to resign his 
seat for Liverpool on his taking the Lisbon Embassy, 
but his constituents refused to allow their connection 
with him to be broken. According to the gossip of 
the time, Canning had intrigued for the invitation to 
Liverpool. He desired to increase his waning influence 
in the House of Commons by the weight attaching to 
the representation of a great commercial constituency. 
Sir Walter Scott had urged him some time before to 
take his own ground and to raise his own standard. 
At Liverpool he was unmuzzled. The confidence which 
this great mercantile constituency showed in him was 
echoed by the residents of Lisbon and the merchants 
of Bordeaux, by whom he was entertained at civic 
banquets. Mr. Canning was something more to them 
than an illustrious statesman ; he was the representa- 
tive of the commercial principles of Mr. Pitt, to which 
the return of peace gave a new opportunity. 



L 2 



148 George Canning 



CHAPTER XIX. 

IN AND OUT OF OFFICE. 

Powerful in tlie House of Commons, and popular in 
the country, tlie Liverpool Administration was ludi- 
crously weak in debating power. The two members 
of the Cabinet in the Commons had grown to four. 
To Castlereagh and Vansittart, at the Foreign Office 
and at the Exchequer, had been added Bragge Bathurst 
(Brother Bragge) as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lan- 
caster, and Wellesley Pole, as Master of the Mint. 
But they did not double the debating power of the 
Ministry. It was necessary to strengthen it. On Can- 
ning's return, in the spring of 1816, he was oifered, at 
the instance of the Prince Regent, the Presidency of 
the Board of Control, in succession to the Earl of 
Buckinghamshire. The office was not then always 
a Cabinet one, though the affairs of our Indian Empire 
were submitted to it. Canning took it. He was 
humbled; he was regretting his Lisbon mistake, the 
sequel and crown of many other mistakes. ' In all 
probability,' he told Stapleton afterwards, ' I should 
have had the most influential post in the Government 
in the House of Commons if I had not fallen into that 
error.' But he had acted, he went on to say, under 
a sense of duty, and in similar circumstances would do 



In and Out of Office 149 

again as lie liad done then. It is difficult to see wliat 
could liave put Castlereagh out of Ms place, or Canning 
into it, if Canning had remained in England. Castle- 
reagh had the confidence, Avhile Canning had only the 
admiration', qualified by distrust and fear, of the country. 
Castlereagh was, in fact, believed to be, in spite of his 
blundering speech, the abler man of action of the 
two. 

Mr. Canning held the Presidency of the Board of 
Control during five years. His term of office was 
covered by that during which the Marquis of Hastings 
was Governor-General, and was marked by the practical 
subjugation of the Peninsula by English arms. The 
government, of course, was that of the East India 
ComjDany. The Governor-General was its servant, and 
not that of the Crown. The duties of the Board of 
Control were those of supervision and not of initiative. 
They were described by Mr. Canning in a speech which 
he delivered in reply to a hostile motion of Mr. Creevy's 
in 1822. By his success in the Mahratta wars the 
Marquis of Hastings had revolutionised India, deliver- 
ing it from anarchy and pillage to order and industry ; 
and Mr. Canning had his part in the vfork. He had 
at first refused to consent to the policy of Hastings. 
He was not disposed, he said, to run the risk of a 
general war for the sake of putting down the Pindarees. 
But to put down the Pindarees, as he soon saw, was 
essential to general peace. In Indian politics Mr. Can- 
ning belonged neither to the forward party nor to the 
party of retreat. He looked, to use his own words, on 
the extension of our Indian Empire with awe, and ex- 
pressed the hope that what remained of substantive 



150 George Canxixg 

and independent power in tliat country might stand 
untouched and unimpaired. He forbade the censorship 
of the press in India. At home he was a member of 
a Government in which Sidmouth was Home Secre- 
tary, and in which Castlereagh was the presiding and 
animating spirit, and wdiich, by its legislative and 
administrative and judicial tyrannies, recalled the worst 
days of Pitt. Canning's attitude during this j)eriod, 
or rather at the commencement of it — but the de- 
scription applies to it throughout — is given in a letter 
which Lord Dudley wrote to the Bishop of Llandaff 
early in February 1817: 'Is there a dangerous spirit 
abroad, or is there not ? Canning says there is. But 
an eloquent Minister is a bad authority on such a 
subject. An alarm is the harvest of such a personage.' 
Canning condescended to be a professional alarmist for 
his old enemy Sidmouth — to supply the rhetoric which 
should justify Sidmouth and Castlereagh's policy. The 
rebellion was a rebellion of the belly, and it was ab- 
surd to trace it back to those French principles which 
had formed the rhetorical stock-in-trade of Canning's 
youth, or to connect, as he did, the movement for 
parliamentary reform with ulterior purposes of revolu- 
tion. The Corn Law of 1815, passed w-hile Canning 
was in Lisbon, the bad harvest of 181G, the war 
prices of the following 3'ears, and the distress and 
famine which those war prices produced, account for 
the disaffection and disturbances which Canning attri- 
buted to the presence of a dangerous spirit. There 
can be little doubt that at the bottom of his heart 
Canning disapproved of the protective policy to which 
he was accessory after the fact. The soundness of his 



In and Out of Office 151 

economic doctrines liacl been proved in man}^ discus- 
sions, and when lie came into real power his action 
with respect to the Corn Laws shows what his judg- 
ment of them was. The Corn Laws produced distress, 
distress produced disaffection and tumult, disaffection 
and tumult were made the pretext for coercive measures 
which increased them, and for resistance to those 
political improvements which would have abated them. 
It is not necessary to tell the story of Luddism, of 
the Spencean Societies and Hampden Clubs, of the 
Blanketeers, of the Derby insurrection, of the Spafields 
riot, of Peterloo, and of the Cato Street conspiracy, and 
of the machinations of spies and informers such as 
Oliver, whose mission it was to manufacture the dan- 
gerous spirit which it was the business of Sidmouth 
to suppress. The Suspension of the Habeas Corpus 
Act ; the Sidmouth Circular about seditious and blas- 
jDhemous libels, and the arbitrary power with which 
it invested the magistrates, by assuming them to be 
invested with it ; the Six Acts, and prosecutions such 
as that of Hone, over which Lord Ellenborough, no 
longer a member of the Cabinet, presided — this 
scandal at least was avoided — proved the little value 
of coercion as a remedy. It is only necessary sum- 
marily to recall these things in order to give an idea 
what the spirit of the Administration was of which 
Canning consented to be a member. No one, of course, 
will contend that disaffection and tumult, however 
originating, can be tolerated. To deal with the cause 
does not exempt you from striking at the effect. But 
the ordinary laws would probably have been enough 
for the purposes of repression, if sober reforms had been 



152 George Canning 

instituted. Acquiescent in Sidmoutli's manner of deal- 
ing with disorder and distress at home, he was sub- 
missive to Oastlereagh's foreign policy, which, so far 
as it was possible on the part of an English Minister, 
was the policy of the Holy Alliance, of which Canning 
was the sworn enemy in heart now as in action after- 
wards. 

Towards the close of the year 1820 Canning re- 
signed the Presidency of the Board of Control and 
retired from the Cabinet. He had declined to be a 
party to the proceedings taken by Lord Liverpool's 
Government against the Princess of Wales, now Queen ; 
and he felt that absence from the House or silence in it 
did not sufficiently relieve him from Ministerial respon- 
sibility. The death of George III. in 1820 had raised 
the question of her status as Queen. She was certain 
to come to England for the assertion of her conjugal 
rights. She had threatened to visit this country in 
August 1819, while she was yet only Princess of 
Wales, much to the annoyance of her adviser. 
Brougham, who believed that only mischief would come 
of it, ^ not to mention the infernal personal annoyance 
of having such a devil to plague one for six months.' 
George IV., as he had now become, was eager for a Bill 
of divorce, and appealed to his Ministers to procure one. 
They represented to him that if the Queen and he were 
private ^^ersons he could not obtain a divorce in the 
Courts, and to introduce a Bill not resting upon a 
judicial decision would be a course attended with grave 
embarrassment. Canning joined in this Ministerial 
memorandum, which conceded the exclusion of the 
Queen's name from the Liturgy, but he did so by way of 



ly AND Out of Office 153 

compromise. In a docket on tlie back of tlie memo- 
randum lie declared that lie could not liave assented to 
this course if any penal process had been in contempla- 
tion. If the Queen was to be accused, it would be 
improper to divest her of privileges before trial. But 
why divest her of them even if unaccused and without 
trial ? The only answer is that something had to be 
conceded to the King if the action he desired was not 
taken against the Queen. Ministers proposed that an 
annuity of 35,000?., which the King might raise to 
50,000Z., should be conferred on the Queen, condition- 
ally on her consenting to reside abroad and relinquish 
the title of Queen. She answered the proposal by 
coming to London, where she took up her residence in 
the house of Alderman Wood. The gauntlet thus 
thrown down was promptly lifted. On the day of 
her arrival Lord Castlereagh brought into the House of 
Commons the thenceforward celebrated green bag, con- 
taining papers confirmatory of the accusations against 
the Queen. On Castlereagh's moving that they be 
referred to a Select Committee, Wilberforce tried to 
prevent the breaking of the seal of the bag. In the 
discussions which followed Canning spoke twice, con- 
tending that inquiry was due to the Queen, to whom he 
referred with regard and affection springing out of old 
relations, and could not be avoided after she had come 
to England and expressly clemanded it. Though thus 
associating himself with his colleagues, Canning's first 
feeling was that he could not with personal honour 
remain among them. ' So help me, God,' he exclaimed 
in the House of Commons, ' I will never place myself in 
the position of an accuser towards this individual ! ' 



154 George: Canning 

He liacl an audience of the King, wliicli lie described to 
a friend in a memorandum, in wliicli, giving scope to 
his insatiable delight in mock-mysteries, he spoke of the 
King as Mars, of the Queen as Dirce, and of himself as 
Marcus. Marcus represented to Mars that, owing to 
the relations of confidence in which he had formerly 
stood to Dirce, he could not be a consenting party to 
criminal proceedings being taken against her. On the 
other hand, Marcus felt the difficulty of continuing in 
the service of Mars without taking part in the discus- 
sions on this vital subject. Mars expressed his sense of 
Marcus's honourable conduct, but desired a few hours 
for consideration. Afterwards, through Lord Liverpool, 
the King requested Canning to remain in office on his 
own terms, and for the time no action was taken. The 
reference to Marcus's previous relations with Dirce 
require a few words of retrospective explanation. When 
the Princess of Wales lived at Montagu House, 
Blackheath, immediately after her separation from the 
Prince, Canning, then a very young man, resided near 
her. He frequently visited her and took part in the 
rather boisterous amusements of that unceremonious 
court, playing at blindman's-buff and other romping 
games, in wdiich Sir William Scott, then a great 
advocate, and afterwards, as Lord Stowell, a greater 
magistrate, took part. In 1803, Canning had offered 
to take any steps in Parliament which she might direct 
to obtain an increase of her appointments, though he 
advised her to depend rather on the kind feeling of the 
King (George HI.), w^ho was disposed to be her good 
friend and to protect her against her husband's perse- 
cutions. In 1814 he advised her to take up her 



Ix AXD Out of Office 155 

residence abroad, among her friends at Brunswick, or, if 
she j)i'eferred it, elsewhere ; she w^onld be ' the grace, 
life and heart' of any society which she might join. 
Canning finally acquiesced in the suggestion that he 
should remain in office while holding aloof from the 
proceedings of which the Queen was the subject. On 
July 5, 1820, he wrote to Lord Liverpool, protesting, 
as a breach of the understanding on v/liich he had con- 
sented to the exclusion of the Queen's name from the 
Liturgy, against the introduction of a clause of divorce 
into the Bill of Pains and Penalties. Towards the close 
of this month Lord Liverpool offered to Canning the 
Secretaryship of State for the Home Department, which 
Canning declined on the ground that the office would 
make him an active participant in the proceedings 
against the Queen. As Home Secretary all questions 
of police which might arise out of the agitation on 
behalf of the Queen, threatening often to degenerate 
into tumult, would be referred to him ; he w^ould have 
to consider the expediency of prosecutions for libel ; in 
fact he w^ould be immersed in the details of the matter, 
as to wdiich he would be brought into direct and constant 
communication with the King. To get clear of the 
thing, and especially to avoid the trial, which began on 
August 17, 1820, Canning left England early in that 
month. He expressed his view of the business in a letter 
to Huskisson, written from Paris on October 2. There 
had been some talk of dropping the divorce clause from 
the Bill. As a parallel case, Canning mentions that in 
his speech in 1809, defending the Duke of York from 
the charge of corruption in the distribution of army 
patronage, he liad contended that crime must be proved 



156 George Caxnixg 

before penalties were inflicted. But for ^ the fatal 
measure of tlie Liturg}',' to wliicli, however, he was a 
conditionally though reluctantly assenting ^Darty, he 
could, he said, have settled the matter last summer. 
Ministers ought to have been firmer with the King ; 
the King would then have played fair. ' But there 
were conferences as well as minutes, and I suspect the 
unwritten counteracted the written communications.' 
However, as the trial had begun, it must be jDushed 
on to conviction or acquittal, and in the event of the 
Queen's being acquitted, her name must be restored to 
the Liturg}". There was neither acquittal nor conviction. 
The second reading of the Bill was carried in the House 
of Lords by a majority of nine only ; it was certain of 
defeat in future stages, and, in the almost impossible 
event of its reaching the House of Commons, of re- 
jection there by an overwhelming majority. Liverpool 
announced that the measure would be dropped. Can- 
ning thought his colleagues had got out of the scrape 
better than they deserved. Canning had remained a 
member of the Government which was responsible for 
the Bill of Pains and Penalties, possibly with the idea 
that, if the issue were a direct acquittal, he might be of 
service to the Queen in considering the arrangements 
which would become necessary. He returned to 
England now that the matter was over, and resolved 
upon resigning office. In a letter to the King, written 
from the India Board on December 12, 1820, he points 
out that the House of Commons will unavoidably be 
engaged in discussions with respect to the Queen's 
case, and that those discussions must be so mixed up 
with the general business of the session that it would be 



In and Out of Office 157 

impossible for a Minister to absent himself from them, 
or to avoid taking part in them. Writing himself 
from Carlton House the next clay, the King with 
promptitude, but with gracious expressions of regret, 
accepted Canning's resignation. Sidmouth and Castle- 
reagh were warm and generous in their declarations of 
regard and sorrow ; Sidmouth addressing him as ' My 
dear Sir,' Castlereagh as ' My dear Canning.' Sidmouth 
says : ' The loss to the King's service and to your 
colleagues will be irreparable ; and let me add that I 
shall feel it deeply, for your kind, cordial and honour- 
able conduct has left a deep impression on my mind.' 
Castlereagh describes himself as ' the individual member 
of the Government who must feel your loss the most 
seriously, both in the House of Commons and in the 
Foreign Office.' ' Allow me,' he adds, ' at the same 
time most cordially to thank you for the uniform 
attention with which you have followed up, and the 
kindness with which you have assisted me in, the de- 
partment for the conduct of which I am more im- 
mediately responsible.' The Court of Directors of the 
East India Company, on being apprised of his retire- 
ment, sent him a letter of thanks and regret (Decem- 
ber 20, 1820). Canning, replying in a letter written on 
Christmas Day from Tuddenham, Norfolk, refers with 
satisfaction to the fact that he had departed from 
precedent in conferring the Governments of Bombay 
and Madras on distinguished servants of the Company, 
Mr. Elphinstone and General Munro. He claims credit 
for not interfering with the Company's nominations, 
still less urging personal wishes or soliciting personal 
favours in regard to their exercise of patronage. Can- 



158 George Caxxixg 

ning was succeeded in the Presidency of the Board of 
Control by Mr. Bathurst Bragge (Brother Bragge). who 
seemed to haunt him vengefully through his career. 
At a meeting specially summoned in the following 
March, the Court of Proprietors of East India Stock 
passed a formal and unanimous vote of thanks to 
Canning. 

Canning remained out of office during the whole of 
the year 1821 and the greater part of 1822. In the be- 
ginning of the former year Lord Sidmouth resigned the 
Home Secretaryship^, retaining a seat in the Cabinet with- 
out office. Mr. Peel, who was supposed to represent the 
principles of Sidmouth, and did so, so far as opposi- 
tion to the Catholic claims was concerned, became his 
successor. Sidmouth thought he could now withdraw 
without endangering public tranquillity. He had co- 
erced England into quietude. ' It was because my 
official bed had become a bed of roses that I deter- 
mined to retire from it. When strewn with thorns I 
would not have left it.' Lord Liverpool was anxious to 
regain Canning's aid. 'In June last' (1821), Canning 
wrote to Lord Morley, ' there was a contest between 
Liverpool and the King for and against my readmission 
to the Cabinet. I then begged not to be j^i'essed on 
the King, as you know. I was so far taken at my word 
that the pressure was dropped for the time, to be renewed 
on the King's return from Ireland. On his Majesty's 
return from Ireland he expressly forbade Liverpool 
to reopen the subject, and it was adjourned till the 
return from Hanover.' The Marquis of Hastings had 
intimated, or was understood to have intimated, his 
wish to come back to Europe, and his desire that a 



In and Out of Office 159 

successor to him in the office of Governor-General of 
India should be named. The Chairman of the Court 
of Directors asked Canning to be allowed to propose 
him, and communications were entered into with Lord 
Liverpool and the King, who was ready enough to 
assent to an arrangement which would relieve him of 
the presence and claims to office in England of a states- 
man whose opposition to him in the matter of the 
Queen's trial he had not forgiven. To Canning also, 
who knew himself proscribed, whose fortune, or rather 
whose wife's fortune, had been diminished, and to 
whom Parliament without office had little charm, the 
offer was agreeable. The arrangement was suddenly 
checked by the announcement that Lord Hastings had 
been misunderstood. He had not intended to resign. 
The place, therefore, was not vacant. The Marquis of 
Hastings had sent a letter of resignation to his friend 
Colonel Doyle, but Colonel Doyle had not presented it. 
Ultimately, at the King's instance, it was sent in to the 
Court of Directors, but it was found to be invalid, being 
in contravention of a clause in the Charter Act of 1793. 
While the affair of India was uncertain a reconstruction 
of the Ministry had been going on, which, indepen- 
dently of the King's hostility to Canning, would have 
made it difficult to bring him in. Overtures were made 
to the Grenvilles. Lord Grenville himself had done 
with office, and was planting trees in Dropmore. But 
the claims of the Grenville family were recognised. 
The Marquis of Buckingham was made a duke ; his 
kinsman, Mr. Charles Williams Wynn, entered the 
Cabinet as President of the Board of Control ; and two 
faithful dependents of the ducal clan found secondary 



i6o George Canning 

places. Canning was indignant at tlie preference given 
to Wjmn over his friend Huskisson^ tliougli lie advised 
Hnskisson not to resent it. 

The difficulty about the Governor-Generalship was 
at length overcome, and though Mrs. Canning was 
described as ' furious at India,' Canning accepted 
the post. He was at Seaforth, the residence of Mr. 
John Gladstone, near Liverpool, whither he had gone to 
bid farewell to his old constituents, when the news 
came that the Marquis of Londonderry — as Castlereagh 
was now styled, though the marquisate being an Irish 
one he continued to sit in the House of Commons^had 
committed suicide. The situation was again changed. 
Canning, writing on August 20 to the Earl of Morley, to 
discuss the effect which this event might have on his 
plans and prospects, declares that he wishes he was well 
on board the ' Jupiter ' — the vessel which was to carry 
him out to India. No proposal, he says, can be made 
to him which will make him glad to stay ; but such a 
proposal may be made as will make it impossible for 
him not to stay. If the whole inheritance (the Foreign 
Office with the leadership of the House of Commons) is 
offered to him, he does not see how he can refuse it ; if, 
as one of his friends suggested, the Colonial Office is 
substituted for the Foreign Office, he will certainly 
decline it. The whole inheritance was placed promptly 
at Canning's disposal, Lord Liverpool insisting, and the 
King submitting, though with a bad grace, to the inevit- 
able. Canning felt reluctance. His imagination had 
been taken with the idea of India, and he made a money 
sacrifice in remaining in England. If only the chance 
had offered ten years earlier ! ' Ten years,' he wrote to 



In and Out of Office i6i 

Sir Charles Bagot, ' have made a world of difFereuce, 
and have made a very different sorfc of world to bnstle 
in than that which I should have found in 1812. For 
fame, it is a squeezed orange, but for public good there 
is something to do, and I shall tvj — but it must be 
cautiously — to do it. You know my politics well 
enough to know what I mean when I say that for 
" Europe " I shall be desirous now and then to read 
" England." ' Canning protested against ' the principle 
of European questions.' He was aware of the diffi- 
culties with which he had to contend. The superstition 
against which he set his face was even more powerful 
then than it is now. He had to reckon also v,dth strong 
personal hostility, within the Cabinet and without. 
The King spoke of him as if he w^ere a convict to whom 
he had granted a free pardon. He tolerated Canning 
as Minister on the ground that ' the brightest orna- 
ment of his Crown was the power of extending grace 
and favour to a subject who might have incurred his 
displeasure.' Canning insisted on an explanation of 
these words, and, learning that they referred to his atti- 
tude in relation to the prosecution of the Queen, was 
content to assert the rectitude of his motives. Foreign 
courts and foreign embassies were against Canning and 
his system of reading, instead of Europe, England, and 
by many of his colleagues he was more thwarted than 
aided. 



M 



1 62 George Caxning 



CHAPTER XX. 

MINISTERIAL LEADER AND FOREIGN SECRETARY. 

Finding the representation of Liverpool in addition to 
the toils of office and of Parliament beyond his strength, 
Canning, early in 1823, resigned his seat for that 
borough, and was elected for Harwich. After nearly 
thirty years of public life, he was at length the leader 
of the House of Commons. Xo contrast could be more 
strongly marked than that between himself and his im- 
mediate predecessor. The imposing figure and gallant 
bearing of Castlereagh, his unvarying courtesy, his 
knowledge of mankind and of public business, his chi- 
valry and good sense won the affection and confidence 
of the House of Commons, in spite of an absolute inca- 
pacity of coherent speech. The images by which he 
strove to bring his ideas home to his own mind and to 
the minds of his hearers have become by-words. He is 
credited with the phrase ' ignorant impatience of taxa- 
tion ' : he really spoke of ' the ignorant impatience of 
the relaxation of taxation.' Confounding Alcmena with 
her son, he told a member that he was mistaken if he 
thought his Herculean labours would bring forth a 
Hercules ; he described a defeated adversary as ' stand- 
ing prostrate.' He laboured, in fact, under a sort of 
parliamentary aphasia. The attempts which he made 



Leader and Foreign Secretary 163 

to cliso-uise a strono: Irish accent set off liis oratorio in- 
capacity. ' Knowledge ' lie called ' niillige,' tlie House 
of Commons was the House of ' Cummins,' a ' dis- 
cussion ' was a ' deskisson.' For ten years the House 
of Commons had been led by a chief whose courage in 
trying to talk English w^as greater than that which the 
Duke of Wellington showed in talking French, who 
was absolutely without the power of expression. For 
five years to come it was to be led by probably the 
greatest master of the art of expression that any 
English Parliament has ever seen. Canning's speech 
was as the closely fitting and 3'et elastic vesture of his 
thought, at once dress and adornment. Eye and lip, 
glance and tone, alert movement and well-balanced 
attitude, prefigured and accompanied the articulate ut- 
terance of his meaning. In some respects this abso- 
lute rhetorical sufficiency was an injury to Canning. 
Because Castlereagh said so little, and said it so ill, he 
was supposed to have a great deal in his mind which he 
left unsaid ; because Canning expressed so perfectly all 
that it was his business to say, it was supposed that there 
was nothing behind which he left unexpressed. The 
sample was believed to be the whole store. The House of 
Commons which Canning faced in 1823 was, of course, 
in its personal constitution a very different assembly from 
that which he had entered in 1794. Pitt and Fox and 
Windham had joined a larger majority than any with 
which they had divided in the lobby. Addington had 
transferred his somewhat fretful and uneasy virtue to the 
Upper House, wdiither, too, Grey had carried his patri- 
cian eloquence ; and a later comer, Lord Henry Petty, 
as Marquis of Lansdowne, his urbane and moderating 

M 2 



164 George Canning 

wisdom. In tlieir place the Whig aristocracy had found 
reinforcement as worthy in the homely good sense 
of Lord Althorp and the pointed sentences of Lord 
John Enssell. In the place of Whitbread, Brougham 
was ' mashing and pounding,' to use Canning's phrase, 
as with the flail of Talus. The adroit parliamentary 
faculty of Peel, the easy and engaging speech of Robin- 
son, the manly and rational eloquence of Plunket, gave 
Canning an aid in debate which he generously acknow- 
ledo-ed. Grattan and Romilly and Francis Horner had 
come and gone. Tierney on the one side of the House 
and Huskisson on the other survived to remind Can- 
ning: of the comrades and rivals whom he had met on 
enterino* Parliament. The Administration had two 
periods, which may be described as the Castlereagh 
period, lasting from 1812 to 1822, and the Canning 
period, from 1822 to 1827. These two statesmen were 
really its successive chiefs, Lord liverpool discharging 
no other function of the premiership than the important 
one of holding the Cabinet together. He was the 
cement which kept the incongruous materials from 
falling apart. Transitions and differences are never so 
sudden and sharp in fact as they are in description, 
and the Castlereagh administration of the Foreign Office 
eased the passage from the ^^olicy forced upon Pitt to 
that eagerly adopted by Canning. They both claimed to 
be Pittites — ' the followers of Mr. Pitt ' was the name 
of which they were proudest — but while Canning repre- 
sented his inner mind, Castlereagh continued, so far as 
he could, his external policy. The reaction in England 
against alliance with the despotic powers of the Con- 
tinent, which followed the conclusion of the Treaty of 



Leader axd Foreign Secretary 165 

Vienna, forced a certain measure of Liberalism on the 
reluctant mind of Castlereagli, and gave new energy to 
the large conceptions of Canning. 

Canning had joined the Cabinet which concluded 
the Treaty of Vienna, but he did not conceal his dis- 
approbation of its general spirit and of many of its 
provisions. The rounding ofi' of kingdoms and states 
by the exchange and barter of territory and the people 
on it, as country gentlemen might ' swop ' farms and 
tenants to bring their estates into a ring-fence, was 
distasteful to him. He especially censured the arrange- 
ments which gave Norway to Denmark and the duchy 
of Genoa to Sardinia, and restored the Pope and the 
petty Italian dukes. When Castlereagh, he said, got 
among princes and sovereigns at Vienna he thought he 
could not be too fine and complaisant. It was, how- 
ever, the fault of Canning's hasty ambition, his ex- 
aggerated personal pretensions, and his too quick 
resentments, that he lost the chance of remaining con- 
tinuously at the head of foreign affairs during the whole 
course of the Perceval and Liverpool Administrations. 
Otherwise a generous foreign jDolicy might have began 
fifteen years earlier than it did. As the domestic difii- 
culties and disturbances of England were the shadow 
of her foreign troubles, it is possible that in this case 
the administrative and legislative oppressions of Sid- 
mouth and the judicial tyrannies of Ellenborough would 
have been avoided or mitigated. During this period, 
however, when he was not repining on the back benches 
or fretting beneath the clock, he was absorbed in the 
Mahratta wars of Hastings. The loss, probably, had 
its compensating gain. Canning, Foreign Minister 



1 66 George Canning 

from 1807 or 1812 to 1822, might have been narrowed 
by the conditions under which, and the instruments 
with which, he had to work. The policy would, possibly, 
have been in some degree better, but the Minister might 
have been in an equal degree deteriorated. It was an 
advantage, both to England and to Europe, that in 1822 
he came but slightly pledged to the old sj'stem, and free 
to form his own judgment and take his own course. 

The year 1821, which witnessed the death of 
Napoleon, gave renewed vigour to the Holy Alliance. 
The chief of the military dictatorship and democratic 
despotism which had mastered Europe disappeared, 
and the old despotisms of divine right acted on their 
compact of oppression. The sovereigns of Austria, 
Russia, and Prussia met at Laj'bach, by adjournment 
from Troppau, and revived the pretensions out of which 
the revolutionary war of France against the leagued 
monarchs of Europe had sprung. The manifesto of the 
Holy Alliance, in 1815, embodied the pretensions set 
forth nearly a quarter of a century before in the Duke 
of Brunswick's proclamation of 1792, and reasserted in 
the circular which the allied sovereigns issued from 
Laybach in 1821 to their representatives at the various 
foreign courts. In this document they declared that 
' useful and necessary changes in legislation and in the 
administration of states could only emanate from the 
free will, and from the intelligent and well-weighed 
convictions, of those whom God has made responsible 
for power. Penetrated with this eternal truth, the 
sovereigns have not hesitated to proclaim it w4th 
frankness and vigour. They have declared that, in 
respecting the rights and independence of legitimate 



Leader and Foreign Secretary 167 

power, they regarded as legally null, and disavowed by 
the principles which constituted the public right of 
Europe, all pretended reforms operated by revolt and 
open hostilities.' These principles, stated nakedly and 
w^ithout shame, were too much even for Lord Castle- 
reagh. In a despatch, written early in the year 1821, 
w^hile admitting the right of a state to interfere 
in the internal affairs of another state when its own 
interests were endangered, he protested against the 
pretension to put down revolutionary movements apart 
from their immediate bearing on the security of the 
state so intervening, and denied that merely pos- 
sible revolutionary movements can properly be made 
the basis of a hostile alliance. The principles of the 
Holy Alliance were not intended to remain a dead 
letter ; they were promptly acted upon. Popular 
movements were suppressed in Is'aples and Piedmont ; 
and intervention in Spain, wdiere the Cortes had been 
summoned and the despotic rule of Ferdinand VII. 
had been overthrown, was in contemplation. Greece 
imitated the example set in the western peninsulas of 
Europe. The Congress of Verona was summoned, and 
Lord Castlereagh (now the Marquis of Londonderry) was 
preparing to join it, when in an access of despondency, 
the origin of wdiich is variously explained, he took his 
own life. In the interval between this terrible event and 
his own appointment to the Foreign Office, in Septem- 
ber 1822, Canning found occasion emphatically but 
indirectly to contradict the doctrines of the Laybach 
circular. Keferring to the struggles going on in some 
Continental countries betw^een the principles of mon- 
archy and democracy, he exclaimed, ' In that struggle, 



1 68 George Canxixg 

God bs thanked, we have not any part to take.' On 
taking possession of the Foreign Office he found that 
the instructions which Lord Londonderry, as Secre- 
tary of State, had drawn up for Lord Londonderry 
as plenipotentiary were such as he could adopt. Be- 
lieving, perhaps, that the ' three gentlemen of A^erona,' 
as Brougham called the sovereigns of Austria, Russia, 
and Prussia, would find a colleague more to their mind 
in the Duke of Wellington than in himself, Canning 
sent him to represent England in the Congress, and 
transferred to him the instructions drawn up by 
Londonderry. He had many difficulties with the Duke, 
whose ideas of foreign policy were much narrower than 
Canning's, but whose authority as the spokesman of 
England was too great to be neglected. Londonderry's 
instructions, interpreted by Londonderry and acted on 
by him, would probably have proved in practice very 
different from Londonderry's instructions interpreted by 
Canning, even though it was the Duke of Wellington 
who had to act on them. 

The main topics of the Congress were four : (1) the 
position of Greece, and the relations to Greece and to 
each other of Russia and Turkey ; (2) the suppression 
of the slave trade ; (o) the question of South American 
independence ; and (4) the revolution in Spain. 

When a boy at Eton, Canning had written and 
published in the ' Microcosm '* a poem on ' The Slavery 
of Greece,' which anticipated the Byronic fervour of a 
later day. It is not necessary to see in his mature 
statesmanship a growth from this small seed. It is 
impossible to argue from the boy to the man. Perceval, 
when a law student in London, had spoken in the 



Leader and Foreign Secretary 169 

debating societies of the clay in favour of the cession 
of Gibraltar to Spain, and of the disestablishment of 
the Churcli of England. Canning's symiDathies were 
with Greece, but he concurred in tiie refusal of the 
Congress to grant her recognition and protection. The 
maintenance of his doctrine of the non-interference of 
foreign nations in the internal affairs of other states 
was vital. If England interfered on the side of freedom, 
on what pretext could she deny the right of other states 
to interfere in behalf of despotism, or, as they would 
put it, order ? The suppression of the slave trade was 
a measure in which Canning had always shown a 
sincere interest from the time of his youthful conver- 
sations with his West Indian friend Newton at Christ 
Church, though he had early in his parliamentary 
career made a speech, in which he said that if he 
were a negro he should prefer slavery in the West 
Indies to having his throat cut in Africa — as if that 
were the alternative. He failed to get more than an 
abstract adhesion to his views in the Congress. The 
slave trade was carried on by Brazil and Portugal largely 
under the French flag. But his Most Christian Ma- 
jesty's representative was not disposed to take steps 
for its suppression. Canning was not more fortunate 
at Verona than he was four years later at Paris, when 
he urged upon the Bishop of Hermopolis (Minister of 
Worship) the desirability of obtaining a Papal Bull 
against the slave trade. 'When, after describing its 
anti-Christian character and all its horrors in practice 
(most eloquently, as I flattered myself), I ended by 
saying, " And it is now with Catholic countries only 
that the shame and criminality of this monstrous traffic 



I/O George Cansixg 

rests," my convert (as I hoped to find liim) answered 
with the greatest mildness and simplicity, " Apparem- 
ment ils en ont plus de besoin." ' On the subject of 
South American independence, the Congress refused to 
allow the rights of Spain to her colonies to be brought 
into question, and the Duke of Wellington presented 
a note, in which he recorded the fact that England had 
recognised the de fado independence of the Spanish 
colonies, and had entered into treaties with them. 

As regards Spain herself, France succeeded in obtain- 
ing the consent of the other Powers (England excepted) 
to her intervention, in such time and manner as might 
seem good to her, for the restoration of order and of 
what was called legitimate government in that country. 
Mr. Canning was forced to be content with limiting the 
intervention to France, and with depriving it of the 
sanction of a European mandate. He thus reduced it 
to the level of a war between the two countries, 
iniquitous on the part of the aggressor, but still not 
sheltered by the doctrine of the general right of any 
Holy Alliance or European concert to interpose in the 
internal affairs of other nations. Mr. Canning pro- 
tested only against the action of France, In his ' Poli- 
tique de la Eestauration,' M. Marcellus, who was at that 
time Secretary to the French Embassy in London, says 
that Canning was himself in favour of giving active 
assistance to Spain, but that a decision of the Cabinet 
in an opposite sense w^as carried against him by his 
young rival, Mr. Peel. But there is a good deal of 
imagination in M. Marcellus's recollections, personal 
and political. 

In the speech from the throne in January 1823, 



Leader axd Fore/gx Secretary 171 

Louis XVIII. annonncecT to tlie Chambers the invasion 
of Spain for the purpose of restoring the Crown to the 
descendant of Henri IV. ; but hostilities, he said, would 
cease as soon as Ferdinand VII. should be free to give 
to his people the institutions which they could not hold 
except from him. Writing to our ambassador in Paris, 
Mr. Canning remonstrated against this doctrine as one 
which no British statesman could hold, and which, in- 
deed, struck at the root of the British Constitution. 
The Spanish nation could not, he urged, be expected to 
submit to the doctrine that their free institutions de- 
pended upon the will of the King, first restored to his 
absolute power, and then voluntarily stripping himself 
of a portion of it. 

Mr. Canning's position with regard to Spain was 
peculiar. Her friend in Europe, he was her enemy in 
America. But the principle which actuated him in 
both cases was the same. The right of Spain to deter- 
mine her own course could not consistently be denied 
to the Spanish colonies, of which the mother country 
had practically lost control. Challenged as to the resem- 
blance between the French invasion of Spain and the 
English war with revolutionary France, he denied that 
there was any parallelism. England had made war 
upon France, not because France had changed her in- 
ternal institutions, but because she had broken treaties 
and attacked the independence of other nations. 
' What country,' he asked, ' had Spain attempted to 
seize or revolutionise ? ' On Russia offering to France 
to protect her advance in Spain, by moving troops from 
the Vistula to the Rhine, Canning announced that, 
though neutral as between France and Spain, England 



172 George Caxning 

would see in the interference of other Powers reason 
for making the cause of Spain her own. Kussia ab- 
stained from the proposed action. The admission of 
the jurisdiction of the Holy Alliance over Europe was 
a course which he deemed it vital at almost any cost to 
prevent. ' The time for Areopagus and the like of 
that,' as he put it, ' has gone by.' ' What should we 
have thought of interference from foreign Europe when 
King John granted Magna Charta, or of an interposition 
in the quarrel between Charles I. and his Parliament ? ' 
The French intervention succeeded. Though Eng- 
land would have had, if she deemed her interests suffi- 
ciently involved, the right to interfere, the right was 
not an obligation. The necessity did not exist. The 
influence of France in Spain was not dangerous to 
England. That influence extending across the Atlantic 
might have been so. Mr. Canning, therefore, to use 
his own historic phrase, made up his mind that if 
France had Spain, it should not be the Spain of 
which our ancestors had been in awe, it should not 
be Spain with the Indies. He ' called the new world 
into existence to redress the balance of the old.' 
British consuls were despatched to the chief ports of 
the Spanish- American colonies. Buenos Ayres was re- 
cognised as an independent power. This first step in a 
new policy shook the Cabinet and detached Lord Sid- 
mouth from it. Lord Westmoreland was also trouble- 
some ; a more important opposition was that of the 
])uke of Wellington, whom Canning charged with secret 
communications with the King and laying traps and 
mines for him. The Duke afterwards boasted that he 
had delayed the recognition of the South American 



Leader and Foreign Secretary 173 

Bepublic for three years. The King was alarmed at 
Canning's determination for 'Europe 'to read 'England,' 
at his denunciation of 'Areopagus and the like of that,' 
at his refusal to admit the jurisdiction of a league of 
despotic states, calling themselves ' Europe,' over inde- 
pendent nations. In a paper which Canning circu- 
lated among his colleagues he illustrated the application 
which might be made of this doctrine by quoting a pas- 
sage from ' L'Etoile,' the organ of the ultra-Royalist party 
in France. It began thus : ' La position de I'lrlande 
interesse toute I'Europe.' It went on to argue that 
Catholic Emancipation was necessary to the tranquillity 
of Great Britain, and that the tranquillity of Great 
Britain was necessary to the repose of France. Mr. 
Canning pointed out to his colleagues that the lan- 
guage used with respect to Ireland was ' identical with 
that employed by France to justify the invasion, the 
conquest, and now the retention of Spain. Naples, Pied- 
mont, Spain, Ireland — who shall draw the line, if the 
23rinciple of European questions be once admitted ? ' 

The recognition of the independence of Mexico and 
of Colombia followed that of Buenos Ayres. Though 
the King assented to these measures, he did so with an 
uneasy mind. The Duke of Wellington was not the 
only person who laid ' plots and mines ' for Canning. 
In a letter, dated January 28, 1825, to the Duke of 
Buckingham, Mr. Charles Wynn (then a Cabinet 
Minister) says that foreign influence has been at work 
with a view of breaking up the Government, but that 
the unanimity of Ministers is such that the ' chief 
mover of the discord ' must fail. The foreign influence 
was apparently that of Prince Esterhazy, who was an 



174 George Caxa'ixg 

intimate of the King's, and one of the coterie of the royal 
cottaofe at Windsor, as well as Austrian Ambassador. The 
mover of discord was probably the King himself. He 
drew up a minute for submission to the Cabinet, complain- 
ing that their action in regard to the Spanish- American 
colonies was precisely analogous to that of France in 
aidinof the revolt of the British-American colonies. 
The Government, he said, were deserting the principles 
of Mr. Pitt in concert with the Opposition, who were 
animated by their love of democracy as opposed to a 
monarchical aristocracy. ' The Jacobins of the world,' 
said the King, ' calling themselves Liberals,' were 
anxious to disturb the understanding on which the 
quadruple alliance was based. ' The King desires there- 
fore distinctly to know from his Cabinet individually 
(seriatim) whether the great principles of policy esta- 
blished by his Government in the years 1814, 1815, 
and 1818 are or are not to be abandoned.' 

The Cabinet saw in this demand for separate replies 
from each member of it an attempt on the part of the 
King to invade the principle of collective Ministerial 
responsibility, and returned a joint answer. They 
pointed out that as early as 1815 the dissent of his 
Majesty's Government from the views of the Allies as to 
their engagements for the maintenance of the peace of 
Europe had been recorded ; that in 1818, at the con- 
ference of Aix-la-Chapelle, that divergence had been 
still more emphatically marked ; and that later a cir- 
cular of Lord Londonderry's had further dwelt on this 
divergence. In the sense involved in these qualifications, 
and in no other, they adhered to the principles of policy 
laid down in 1814, 1815, and 1818. The King accepted 



Leader and Foreign Secretary 175 

this explanation subject to the condition that ' the 
system of confidence and reciprocal communication with 
his allies be fully and faithfully carried out.' Canning 
took fire at the words ' fully and faithfully,' regarding 
them as an imputation upon his honour as the Minister 
charged with the administration of foreign afiairs. If 
his Majesty suspected his good faith he must ask to be 
relieved of his office. As to fulness of communication, 
that is a matter of discrimination, involving respect for 
the secrets of other Powers. Under a system of respon- 
sible government such as exists in England, such com- 
munications almost inevitably become public, and give 
rise to parliamentary discussions, and a reserve is 
therefore necessary of which the Government only can 
be the judge, and which no foreign Power can ap- 
preciate. 

Canning's reference here was to the intrigues which 

he believed that Metternich, ' the greatest r and the 

greatest 1 on the Continent, perhaps in the civilised 

world, has been for a twelvemonth carrying on with 

the Court through Madame de (Lieven ?), to 

change the policy of the Government by changing me — 

'-'■ four faire sauter M. G ," as they frankly put it.' 

The King lived in the Cottage at Windsor in the society 
of the Austrian and Russian Ambassadors (Prince 
Esterhazy and Count Lieven), and Sir William 
Knighton, the King's privy purse, was an active member 
of the coterie. Canning let it be known that, if these 
intrigues were persisted in, he would take means of 
putting the House of Commons and the public in pos- 
session of the secret. Private communication by 
Foreign Ministers with the King of England was, he 



176 George Canning 

declared, wliolly at variance with the spirit and practice 
of the British Constitution. T?ie practice had been 
allowed for the first time by his predecessor (Castlereagh), 
but it would not stand the test of parliamentary dis- 
cussion. It was, strictly speaking, his duty to be present 
at every interview between the King and a foreign 
representative, and though he would not insist on this, 
he w^ould take effectual means for putting a stop to 
Metternich's manoeuvres. 

These suspicions and intentions were made known 
to Lord Granville, then English Ambassador at Paris, 
with the certainty that they would reach Metternich 
and the King, which they did. Knighton was sent on 
a message of apology and reconciliation to Canning, 
w^ho was then confined to his bed by illness. Knighton, 
formerly a physician, jDrobably carried the talent of 
society and the arts of personal management to a 
greater perfection than anyone has done in England 
since his time. There are lion-tamers and serpent- 
charmers who can reduce to harmlessness creatures 
whom others cannot approach. Knighton was a king- 
tamer and charmer, and could bring George IV. to reason 
when no one else could. The gossipings of the Cottage, 
Knighton said, were of no importance. They seldom 
touched on serious politics, though, no doubt, Esterhazy 
and Lieven might instil some thoughts into the King's 
mind. But the King had no power of making society 
for himself, and he liked their society better than any 
other. The King was indisposed to business, and when 
Knighton urged it on him there were often very painful 
scenes. ' He is uncertain,' said Knighton ; ' the creature 
of impulse. When he has got a notion into his head there 



Leader and Foreign Secretary 177 

is no eradicating it ; and I have known liim, when 
agitated and perfectly fasting, talk himself into as com- 
plete a state of intoxication as if he had been dining 
and drinking largely.' But he was now absolutely con- 
tent with Canning. Knighton had ]iever known him 
so comfortable and happy, reconciled even to the Span- 
ish-American recognition. Canning, from whose' nar- 
rative to Stapleton these details are taken, said that ' it 
was his object to make the King comfortable and happy 
by placing him at the head of Europe, instead of being 
reckoned fifth in a great confederacy.' But the King, 
he said, owed the satisfactory position in which he found 
himself not to Canning and to Liverpool only, but to the 
extraordinary efficiency with which Peel, Eobinson, and 
Huskisson filled the great offices of state with which they 
were charged. Of Peel in particular he spoke as the best 
Home Secretary this country had ever had, and the most 
able and honest Minister. The change in Esterhazy 
was not less. When, towards the close of the year, he 
bade farewell to the King upon his departure to take up 
the Austrian Embassy at Paris, Canning was present, 
and the royal and diplomatic intriguers vied in repentant 
eulogies upon his success as Foreign Minister. The 
King was especially pleased with the proposal of Bolivar 
to make him arbitrator in a dispute between Brazil and 
Colombia. He took it as a sign of his weight in the 
councils of South America. ' When we see our way,' 
he said, ' and can employ our influence, we can do 
anything.' ' Qui est-ce ' (turning to Esterhazy) ' qui 
pourrait faire ce que nous venons d'accomplir au Bresil ? ' 
Next to the rescue of the South American States, 
Canning desired to relieve Greece from Turkish domi- 

N 



178 George Canning 

nation, and to prepare the way for the recognition of 
her independence, of which, however, his premature 
death prevented his seeing the accomplishment. He 
died some months before Navarino. A conference was 
held at St. Petersburg in 1825, in which Canning 
declined to allow England to take a part, thinking that 
the despotic Powers, who might otherwise quarrel among 
themselves, would be united in common antagonism to 
the liberal policy of England. The Porte refused the 
offer of mediation, and France, Austria, and Prussia 
declined to join in measures of coercion. What the 
Emperor of Russia desired was that he should be 
authorised by the Holy Alliance to intervene in the 
Greek insurrection as France had intervened in Spain, 
in the hope that he would thus find his way to Con- 
stantinople. But he did not venture to act alone. 
' " Silly Mr. Tomkins," as I heard one of the Lyttelton 
girls singing the other night,' writes Canning ; ' silly, 
if he accepts the rebuif of the Porte, sillier if he allows 
Austria's threats to prevent his making war. Yet the 
risk was too great with Austria and France protesting, 
and England looking on. My reflections come back, 
therefore, like Miss Lyttelton's song, to " silly Mr. 
Tomkins." Metternich has, therefore, to thank his own 
finesse if he, and not I, is the cruel Polly Hopkins who 
steps in between Mr. T. and his desires.' 

Before the year was at an end ' silly Mr. Tomkins' had 
been succeeded on the throne by his brother Nicholas. 
In the divergence between Russia and the other Powers 
Canning thought he saw a chance of coming to an under- 
standing with the new Czar. He hoped, as he put it, 
to be able to save Greece through the agency of the 



Leader and Foreign Secretary 179 

Kussian name upon the fears of Turkey. He proposed 
to the King to send the Duke of Wellington to St. 
Petersburg, as the fittest man to deprecate war. The 
ostensible object of the mission was to convey the King's 
congratulations to the new Emperor on his accession. 
The King thought the Duke would object on the ground 
of his health; but, says Canning, he 'jumped, as I 
foresaw that he would, at the proposal.' ' Never better 
in my life ; ready to set out in a week.' The Duke was 
always sensitive to the imputation of illness, and to the 
day of his death was never better in his life. There were 
difficulties, however, in the way of an understanding 
with Kussia. To the Emperor Nicholas, at this time, 
the Greeks were rather rebels to be put down than co- 
religionists to be relieved from Mohammedan domina- 
tion. The personal relations between Canning and the 
Duke of Wellington had never been satisfactory. There 
were reciprocal complaints of want of direct and prompt 
communication. The negotiations dragged on, but in 
the end a protocol between England and Russia was 
signed, to which the adhesion of the other Powers was 
solicited, and by which it was arranged that Greece 
should be converted into what is now called an autono- 
mous vassal state, paying tribute to the Turkish Empire, 
but governed by native authorities, and enjoying free- 
dom of commerce and conscience. In 1827 the protocol 
was converted into the treaty to which France became 
a party. Mr. Canning's last act, though he was then 
Prime Minister and not Foreign Minister, Lord Dudley 
and Ward having succeeded him in the latter office, 
was to take part in the joint declaration of the three 
Powers calling upon the Porte to enter into an armistice 

N 2 



i8o George Canxing 

with G reece witli a view to negotiations for a peace, and 
threatening to impose the armistice by force if it were 
not voluntarily adopted. The Greeks accepted the 
armistice, Turkey refused it. The battle of Navarino 
followed. It was fought in October, 1827. Canning 
had died in the August before. Three years after his 
death the complete independence of Greece was recog- 
nised in the Treaty of London. 

By old treaties frequently renewed, a defensive 
and offensive alliance existed between England and 
Portugal. In 1826 it fell to Mr. Canning to give 
effect to it. In that year Doni Pedro, Emperor of 
Brazil and King of Portugal, renounced his European 
kingdom for his American empire. He granted a con- 
stitution to Portugal, and abdicated in favour of his 
infant daughter, Donna Maria da Gloria, the regency 
being conferred upon her aunt, the Infanta Isabella. 
Dom Miguel, the younger brother of Dom Pedro, claimed 
the throne, and, instigated by France, began civil war in 
Portug^. The Portuguese regiments in his interest 
deserted into Spain. Instead of being disarmed and 
interned they were equipped there, and from Spanish 
territory allowed to organise an invasion of and war in 
Portugal. The Princess Regent claimed, under the 
treaties, the aid of England against this aggression. 
Mr. Canning considered that the casus foederis had 
arisen. On December 11, 182G, a royal message was 
brought down to Parliament announcing the King's 
compliance with this demand. Complaint was made 
that action had been delayed. ' But how,' said Canning, 
' stands the fact ? On Sunday, December 3. the Por- 
tuguese ambassador made a formal demand of assistance 



Leader and Foreign Secretary i8i 

against a hostile aggression from Spain. Our answer 
was that, though we had heard rumours to that effect, 
we had not yet received such precise information as 
justified us in applying to Parliament. It was only on 
Friday that that information arrived. On Saturday 
his Majesty's confidential servants came to a decision. 
On Sunday that decision received the sanction of his 
Majesty. On Monday it was communicated to the 
Houses of Parliament ; and to-day, at the hour at which 
I have the honour of addressing you, the troops of 
Great Britain are on their march for embarkment.' 
Pecalling to the recollection of the House the prediction 
which he had made some years ago, that the next war 
in Europe would be a war of opinions, Canning added 
that England did not go to Portugal to take part in a 
war of opinions. ' We go to Portugal not to rule, not 
to dictate, not to prescribe constitutions, but to defend 
and preserve the independence of an ally. We go to 
plant the standard of England on the well-known 
heights of Lisbon. Where that standard is planted 
foreign dominion shall not come.' On Christmas Day, 
in 1826, the British forces landed in Lisbon. Hos- 
tilities at once ceased. In eighteen months the troops 
returned to England without having fired a shot. 

Next to the King and the Continental gossips of the 
Cottage, Canning found the main obstacle to his foreign 
policy in the Duke of Wellington. He visited Paris 
in the autumn of 1826 and dined with Charles X. 
The Duke of Wellington, he said, was very angry at 
his going there, and two years ago had interfered with 
the King to prevent his doing so. ' But I suppose,' he 
wrote to Liverpool, October 16, ' he felt that, after he 



i82 George Canning 

himself liad been here in the interval, and after West- 
moreland had been preaching here his nltra-philo 
Turkish principles, I was not likely to be again turned 
from my j^^^iT'^s^-' C)n the Portuguese business, he 
complains of the Duke of Wellington's partiality for 
Spain and his hatred of Liberal institutions, which 
appear to have led him to incline to Dom Miguel's side. 
He speaks of unreasonable remonstrances on the Duke's 
part about the delay of despatches, and adds : — 

But there is no use discussing these bye questions. 
There is something else — though I protest I know not 
what — at the bottom of the D. of W.'s present temper. His 
extraordinary fretfulness upon this matter, his repeated 
references and those of his alentoiirs to the approach of 
critical times, and other language which I know that both 
he and the Chancellor have held very lately about the state 
of the Government, satisfy me that there is a looking 
forward to some convulsion in the Government ; not wholly 
unmixed, perhaps, with some intention of bringing it on. 
Be it so j I confess I have no idea how the Government will 
be carried on in the House of Commons in the sense in 
which it has been carried on in the last three years, with 
the whole patronage of the law, the greater part of the 
Church, and all the army in the Chancellor's and the D. of 
W.'s hands. 



i83 



CHAPTER XXI. 

CANNINGr PRIME MINISTER. 

The convulsion in tlie Government Avas not brought 
on in the manner which Canning anticipated. Lord 
Liverpool had for some time been ailing, and in the 
beginning of the year 1827 was in Bath, promising 
himself, however, ten years of enjoyable life if he could 
get clear of office. Canning visited him there in 
January, he too carrying with him the seeds of the 
malady which was destined before the year was 
over to prove fatal to him. He came straight from 
the funeral of the Duke of York, which had taken 
place in St. George's Chapel, Windsor. The night was 
bitterly cold, and Canning never recovered from the 
effects of the exposure. He found Lord Liverpool 
better, and no longer talking of resignation. The two 
men, comrades at Christ Church and rival orators of 
the Speaking Society, amused themselves and Stapleton, 
who accompanied Canning, by telling stories of their 
early years. From Bath, Canning went to Eartham, 
to see Huskisson. While he was there his cold became 
worse, and he spent one day in bed. He then went 
to Brighton, where he had taken a house, and where 
he was attacked by inflammation of the muscles and 



184 George Canning 

brow ao-iie — the former subdued bv bleedino*. He was 
too ill to write himself, and Stapleton sent daily 
bulletins of his health to Lord Liverpool. Lord Liver- 
pool had sufficiently recovered to return to London. 
On February IG he took part in the business of the 
House of Lords. On February 17 he was found lying 
senseless on the floor of his bedroom, with an open 
letter in his hand. It was from Stapleton, giving a 
somewhat unfavourable account of Canning's health. 
The next day Eldon recorded the following business- 
like reflection : ' His life is very uncertain, and it is 
quite certain that as an ofiicial man he is no more. 
Heaven knows who will be his successor.' Liverpool 
remained for five days unconscious. On his revival, 
the first word he uttered was Stapleton's name. 

Peel wrote to Canninof, informinof him of what had 
happened, and came himself to Brighton. The two 
Ministers agreed that it would be improper to assume 
an unfavourable termination to Liverpool's illness, or to 
raise any question as to his successor. On February 22 
Canning had sufficiently recovered to have an interview 
at the Royal Pavilion with the King, who concurred in 
holding the question of the Ministerial succession, which 
so puzzled Eldon, in abeyance. It soon became ap- 
parent, however, that Eldon was right, and that as an 
official man Lord Liverpool was no more. 

Now began the intrigues against Canning. The 
Duke of Newcastle, availing himself of his right as a 
peer to have an audience of the King, declared that he 
would withdraw his support from the Government if 
Canning were named First Minister. On March 27 
Canning was sent for to the Royal Lodge. The King 



Caxxixg Prime Minister 185 

frankly stated liis objections to the appointment of a 
' Catholic (pro-Catholic) Prime Minister.' Canning 
advised the King to appoint a Government consisting 
exclusively of men holding the King's views on the 
Catholic question, and, in order to facilitate this ar- 
rangement, offered to resign office. To this the King 
strongly demurred. He approved of his foreign policy, 
which had placed England in a position such as she 
had never occupied before. 

Canning, however, was firm. He could not, he said, 
admit in his own person the principle that the holding 
of pro-Catholic opinions was a proper ground of exclu- 
sion from the highest office in the State. ' He felt 
bound honestly to tell his Majesty in plain terms that 
the substantive power of a Prime Minister he must 
have, and, what is more, must be known to have, or 
he must beg leave to be allowed to retire from a situa- 
tion which he could no longer fill with satisfaction to 
himself and benefit to his Majesty's service.' The King 
strove for some time to keep Canning, without con- 
senting to Canning's terms. He had recourse to the ex- 
pedient which he had adopted on the death of Perceval, 
and expressed, in a written minute entrusted to Canning, 
his desire that the Ministers would choose in succession 
to Lord Liverpool some peer holding Lord Liverpool's 
opinions, under whom they could consent to serve. 
Before the Cabinet could be called to consider this 
memorandum. Peel, at the instance of the King, sug- 
gested to Canning the inexpediency of its being sub- 
mitted to them, and it was withheld. Matters dragged 
on. Canning for some days had no further communi- 
cation with the King, but had many conversations with 



1 86 George Canning 

Wellington and Peel. Canning proposed an arrange- 
ment identical, save for the fact that he sat in the 
House of Commons, with that to which Lord Salisbury 
gave effect in 1885. He suggested that Mr. Frederick 
Robinson should be raised to the peerage with the 
office of First Lord of the Treasury, Canning retaining 
the Foreign Office, but with the rank of Prime Minister. 
As Robinson, like Canning, was a pro-Catholic as well 
as a strong Canningite, and as Canning was still to be 
First Minister, this overture did not offer the basis of 
an accommodation with the anti-Catholics who were 
also anti-Canningites. Peel, whom Canning suspected 
of acting in concert with the Duke of Wellington in 
this matter, proposed that Canning should name the 
Duke. Canning refused. He could not serve under 
the Duke, who was not only an opponent of Catholic 
concessions, but was the antagonist, open or secret, 
of Canning's foreign policy. He also took the rather 
claptrap ground of hostilit}' to a military Premier. The 
Duke of Wellington in politics was as much of a civilian 
as Canning or Peel. This was on April 9. Canning's 
refusal must have been at once communicated to the 
King, who now surrendered. On the next day, April 10, 
Canning received the royal command to prepare, with 
as little delay as possible, a plan for the reconstruction 
of the Administration. 

The reconstruction of the Administration turned 
out practically to be the formation of a new one. 
The excitement of feeling was intense. ' The whole 
conversation,' wrote Lord Eldon, ' of this town is made 
up of abusive, bitterly abusive talk of people about each 
other — all fire and flame. I have known nothing like it.' 



Canning Prime Minister 187 

Six of Canning's colleagues in the Cabinet met liis 
overtures by resignation. Peel's refusal was based on 
his personal position as regards Catholic Emancipation. 
For eleven years, he said, he had been a member of 
Lord Liverpool's Administration in offices which 
brought him in direct connection with L'ish business. 
He had been six years Irish Secretary and five years 
Home Secretary. His personal opposition to the Catholic 
claims had been made more prominent by the fact that 
he was the only member of the Cabinet in the House 
of Commons who resisted them. But then he had the 
support of the Prime Minister, who was of his way of 
thinking. With Canning at the head of the Govern- 
ment his position would be seriously altered. Peel, it 
is curious now to note, feared that Koman Catholic 
emancipation might lead to the disestablishment of the 
Church and the repeal of the Union. But he did not 
believe in governing against Parliamentary and public 
opinion. In 1825, when Burdett carried a resolution 
in favour of emancipation, he thought emancipation 
could not be withheld. In 1827, when the majority 
was the other way, he believed it might still be refused, 
and he declined to join Canning. In 1829, he felt 
that the concession must be made. To him the art of 
government was the measurement of social forces, and 
the adaptation of policy to their direction and intensity. 
When it was clear to him that a thing must be done, 
and that his help was essential to the doing of it, 
his duty was plainly marked out. His casuistry may 
have been faulty, but there is no reason to doubt his 
purity and uprightness. Besides Peel, five other mem- 
bers of the Liverpool Cabinet retired — the Duke 



1 88 George Canning 



^ 



of Wellington, Master- General of tlie Ordnance, Lord 
Chancellor Eldon, Lord Westmoreland (the Sot Prive), 
Lord Batlinrst (War and Colonial Secretary), and Lord 
Bexley (formerly Vansittart), who had exchanged the 
Chancellorship of the Exchequer for a peerage and the 
Duchy of Lancaster. Bexley afterwards withdrew his 
resignation, but the balance was kept even by Lord 
Melville's — not, of course, Pitt's Dundas — retirement 
from the Admiralty. Canning regarded these desertions 
as fatal to his chance of forming an Administration, and 
waited upon the King to renounce the commission en- 
trusted to him. The King, however, urged him to perse- 
vere ; and, before leaving him. Canning kissed hands as 
First Lord of the Treasury. On April 12 a new writ was 
moved for the borough of Newport — which had chosen 
him in the elections of 1826 — vacated by his accept- 
ance of office. The House adjourned until May 1. 
When it met again the new Ministry was completed. 
Mr. Canning united the offices of First Lord of the 
Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer ; Sir John 
Copley, under the title of Lord Lyndhurst, succeeded 
Lord Eldon as Lord Chancellor ; the Duke of Portland 
(whose place was afterwards taken by the Earl of Car- 
lisle) became Lord Privy Seal, in succession to the 
' glutinously adhesive ' Westmoreland (now clegomme) ; 
Mr. Sturges Bourne became Home Secretary in the 
place of Peel, and was himself succeeded presently 
by the Marquis of Lansdowne, the ' little Petty ' of 
Canning's early satire ; Lord Dudley and Ward took 
Canning's old post of Foreign Secretary; Mr. Frede- 
rick Eobinson, Chancellor of the Exchequer in the 
late Liverpool Administration, now raised to the -peer- 



C.LVx/A'G Prime Minister 189 

age as Viscount Godericli, succeeded Lord Batliurst as 
War and Colonial Minister ; and tlie Earl of Carlisle 
became First Commissioner of Woods and Forests, 
an office in wliich lie was succeeded by Mr. Sturges 
Bourne when Lord Carlisle took tlie Privy Seal and 
Lord Lansdowne the Home Office. Canning prudently 
strengthened himself at Court by taking the Admiralty 
out of Commission, and appointing the Duke of Cla- 
rence Lord High Admiral. Overtures were made to the 
Duke of Wellington to retain, without a seat in the 
Cabinet, and therefore without giving in his political 
adhesion to the Government, the office of Commander- 
in-Chief, which he had held in conjunction with the 
Master-Generalship of the Ordnance. But he refused 
even this neutral support. In the earlier negotiations 
and correspondence he had accused Canning of failure 
in jDcrsonal courtesy towards him. To him Canning- 
was a ' charlatan.' Their secret antagonism now be- 
came pronounced alienation. They never saw each 
other after the Duke's resignation. The part taken by 
Wellington in all this business is by no means clear. 
Though disclaiming it strongly, he seems to have been 
attracted by the notion of being Prime Minister. He 
denied concert in PeeFs suggestion, but not knowledge 
of it. But the King would not hear of Canning's 
leaving the Government, and Canning was resolved 
to have the first place in it, or to be out of it alto- 
gether. 

The Ministry now formed was j^i^actically a Liberal 
one. In the Tory party, as it was reconstructed by 
the younger Pitt, there had always been an element of 
Liberalism derived by Pitt himself on the one hand 



190 George Canning 

from the economic and pliilosopliic Kadicalism of Shel- 
burne, under wliom lie entered official life, or rather 
from Adam Smith, the common teacher of both, and on 
the other from the bold and generous foreign policy 
of Chatham. In Canning the spirit of Chatham re- 
vived; Huskisson, his most intimate personal friend 
and official and parliamentary colleague, and Robinson 
more directly embodied the economic Liberalism of 
Shelburne. But Canning, though commercial and 
fiscal subjects were not so familiar to him as foreign 
questions, correctly apprehended them. This his 
celebrated speech on the Bullion Committee and his 
speeches on the Corn Laws sufficiently showed. Free 
Trade was then in the reciprocity stage, and this is the 
despatch in cypher with which Canning puzzled Sir 
Charles Bagot, then Minister at the Hague : — 

In matters of commerce the fault of the Dutch 
Is giving too little and asking too much ; 
With equal advantage the French are content, 
So we'll clap on Dutch bottoms a twenty per cent. 

Twenty per cent., 

Twenty per cent.. 
Nous frapperons Falck with twenty per cent. 

Mr. Brougham, Sir Francis Burdett, and Mr. 
Tierney, who afterwards became Master of the Mint in 
Canning's Ministry, and others took their seats behind 
the new Ministers on their reappearance in Parliament. 
In the House of Lords, Lord Lansdowne, the son of 
Shelburne, and Lord Holland, the nephew of Charles 
James Fox, exhibited similar correctness of insight 
and largeness of view. There was one remarkable ex- 
ception to the generous confidence which the Whigs, 



Canning Prime Minister 191 

as a rule, were disposed to place in Mr. Canning. Lord 
Grey showed himself incapable of even a magnanimous 
forbearance. Possibly lie had derived from association 
with the Grenvilles the distrust and dislike with which 
the brotherhood were inspired towards Mr. Canning. 
His haughty and arrogant scorn and the vivacious 
and piercing contempt of Mr. Canning sharpened 
this animosity. Grey lost no time in making a 
bitter attack on the new Minister, whose foreign 
policy he assailed — that, however, defended itself in 
the changed aspect of Europe — and whom he charged 
with betraying the Roman Catholics and his own 
honour in giving an unconstitutional pledge to the 
King not to bring forward the question of Roman 
Catholic Emancipation. It seems jorobable, from pas- 
sages in the Duke of Buckingham's 'Memoirs of the 
Court of George IV.,' that the King amused himself by 
telling lies on this subject, which Lord Grey believed. 
But apart from the letters of Canning and the King, 
which refute the royal story, the anti-Catholic secession 
of Peel, Wellington and the rest, and the whole history 
of the formation of Mr. Canning's Ministry contradict it. 
Canning was cut to the quick, and at one time thought 
of taking a peerage, in order that he might answer 
Lord Grey in person. He actually prepared the speech 
which he intended to deliver, and recited it to Mrs. 
Canning, who told Greville of the circumstance, adding 
that she thought Grey's attack had hastened her hus- 
band's death. The Ministry was weak in the Lords. 
Lord Goderich, who when he was in the House of 
Commons some competent if ^^rejudiced and eccentric 
observers had counted the superior of Canning and 



192 George Canning 

Peel, had not the courage to face Grey and Wellhigton. 
In Lord Dudley, the Amiel of politics, great capacity 
and some ambition were paralysed by a disabling 
critical fastidiousness. The silver voice and brazen 
front of Lyndhurst strengthened the debating power 
of the Ministry in the Lords without adding to its moral 
weight. In the House of Commons Canning was teased 
by the pertinacious hostility of the ' yelpers,' as they 
were called, who barked out coarse insinuations ao^ainst 
him in question and taunt. 

Canning's health was evidently shattered, his nerves 
worn, and his temper embittered. The prize for which 
he had striven so long, and which had so long eluded 
his grasp, which he had thought to be within his reach 
twenty years ago, but in the attempt to seize which he 
had been baffled and driven into isolation, and, so far as 
was possible to his shining qualities, into obscurity, was 
now his. But fame was a sucked orange. The great 
Foreign Minister had no opportunity of proving him- 
self a great First Minister. Parliament rose early in 
July. It was hoped that a long recess would revive 
the flagging spirits and restore the waning strength of 
the Prime JMinister. He had never recovered entirely 
from the cold v/hich he had caught in January at the 
Duke of York's funeral. He increased it by sitting 
under a tree in the open air at Wimbledon (July 10), 
where he had dined with Lord Lyndhurst. Ten days 
later, in reply to a letter from the King, inquiring as to 
his recovery from ' the odious lumbago,' Canning says 
that he has 'happily left his bed for the first time 
to-day ' (July 20), ' and is ordered to go to Chiswick, 
which the Duke of Devonshire has kindly lent him. 



Canning Prime Minister 193 

After a few clays of quiet tliere lie will, with your 
Majesty's kind permission, pay liis respects to your 
Majesty.' Canning visited the King on July 31, and 
transacted business in Downing Street. The next day 
he returned to Ohiswick, which he never left alive. 
' Canning,' writes Croker to Lord Hertford, ' looks ill, 
but bis intimates say he is only tired. The Duke of 
Devonshire has lent him Chiswick, as his father did to 
Mr. Fox. I hope it may not be an omen.' Canning 
occupied the room in which Fox had died — ' a small 
low chamber, once a nursery, dark, and opening into 
a wing of the building, which gives it the appearance 
of an opening into a courtyard.' He told Croker that 
he had not had one day's health since the beginning of 
the year. ' He ate and drank too heartily,' says Croker, 
prosaically. But even this habit will not wholly account 
for the melancholy which, according to Croker himself, 
was stamped upon Canning's face at this time. Staple- 
ton says he had suffered paroxysms of pain at Brighton 
earlier in the year. Formerly he had been able to 
throw aside everything that harassed him as soon as his 
head was on his pillow. Now his nights were wakeful. 
He was, almost literally, worn and stung to death. 
Sensitive to the paltriest newspaper paragraph, the 
attacks of Wellington and Grey and the barkings of 
the yelpers fretted him beyond endurance. Even at an 
earlier period, according to M. Marcellus, he had fore- 
boded for himself the fate of Castlereagh. But the 
Canning of Marcellus is evidently a fancy sketch rather 
than an historic portrait — a Canning after the likeness 
of Canning's friend and rival in European politics, 
Chateaubriand. 

o 



194 Grorgj-: Canning 



CHAPTER XXII. 

DEATH OF CAXNIXG. 

During tlie earlier days of his illness he made an effort 
to attend to business, but his mind every now and then 
wandered. Of this he was apparently conscious. He 
had written a paper on the affairs of Portugal, which, 
says Croker, he told Stapleton to take to Goderich 
and Robinson (Robinson was Goderich), and to desire 
them to cut it up and not to spare it. This he asked 
Stapleton to write down, that there might be no 
mistake. On Stapleton's reading out the words: 'Send 
this paper to Goderich and Robinson,' Canning said : 
' Goderich and Dudley. Now you see how necessary 
it was to make you write it down ; you would else have 
thought I was talking nonsense.' Next day he walked 
about the room and refused to be helped into bed. 
' No, no,' he said, ' not so bad as that. I think I can 
do that without help.' He seemed encouraged by 
this achievement, and when he had got into bed he 
said gaily, ' Well, I feel that if I can get through 
to-day I shall do.' Later in the day this hopeful 
feeling gave way. He told Sir Matthew Tierney, whom 
Knighton had sent to him, distrusting the old navy 
surgeon whom Canning had chosen as his medical 
attendant, that ' he had struggled with the disease for 



Death of Canning 195 

a long while, but that now he felt that it had quite 
mastered him.' 

On August 4 it became evident that the worst was 
to be feared, and Stapleton, who was with him, was 
asked whether there was anything in his public or 
private affairs which might make it desirable to warn 
him of his danger. Receiving a negative answer, his 
physicians thought it advisable not to disturb him. 
The next day he asked his daughter to read prayers 
to him ; ' but he began to wander, and it was not 
done.' Later on, being asked whether he felt better, 
he replied, ' Yes, a little ; but if all the pain which 1 
have suffered throughout my life were collected to- 
gether it would not amount to the one-hundredth part 
of the pain I have suffered during the last three days.' 
He then wandered and dozed. ' When the physicians 
saw him this evening (Stapleton records) he was in 
pain, and exclaimed, "My God! my God!"' Dr. Farre 
observed. "You do right, sir, to call upon your God. I 
hope you pray to Him." "I do, I do,"' was his answer. 
" And 3'ou ask,"' added the doctor, " for mercy and sal- 
vation through the merits of your Redeemer?" "Yes," 
he replied, "I do, through the merits of Jesns Christ." 
In the course of the evening he said to Sir William 
Knighton, whom the King had sent to see him, " This 
may be hard upon me, but it is harder upon the King." ' 
On the 7th there was a rally, followed by a relapse. 
The next day the end came. Stapleton went into his 
bedroom early and found him unconscious. ' Sir M. 
Tierney felt his pulse, thought for a second that he 
was gone, but he still breathed. In a few minutes 
there ceased to be any signs of breathing. He passed 



196 George Canxing 

away so quietly that tlie exact moment could not be 
ascertained, but it was between twelve and ten minutes 
before four.' 

Even at this hour, before daj^break, a vast crowd of 
three or four thousand persons was assembled outside 
the Lodge at Chiswick, waiting for the tidings of life 
or death. More numerous still was the concourse which 
lined the streets as the statesman's body was borne in 
a funeral which, though intended to be private, was 
followed by princes and ambassadors and members of 
both Houses of Parliament, to Westminster Abbey, 
where a statue by Chantrey commemorates him, on the 
back of which the words, ' Thus Canning stood,' are 
inscribed. Another statue, which was formerly placed 
in New Palace Yard, but which has been removed 
to the farthest recess of what is now called St. 
Stephen's Square, seems to look with an air of distant 
and scarcely recognising curiosity, which the original 
mio'ht wear if he returned to earth, at the Houses of 
Parliament, so changed in their exterior aspect and in 
their inner furniture, in men and manners, since Can- 
ning knew them; and at the group of lesser states- 
men. Peel, Palmerston, Derby, Beaconsfield, which until 
their turn shall come to be thrust back occupy the 
foreground from which Canning has retreated. 

The bitterness of feeling which Canning had roused 
in his lifetime survived him. Though he had never 
lived ostentatiously, and had shunned what Avas ordi- 
narily called society, the expenses inseparable in those 
days from office had impaired the fortune which he had 
received with his wife. His personal property at his 
death was sworn under 20.000Z.. and it was believed 



Death of Caxxixg 197 

to be very much below that sum. It was proposed that 
an amiuity of 3,000/. should be settled in succession 
upon his two surviving sons. The proposal was attacked 
in the House of Commons with an acrimony of dis- 
paragement greater than that which Canning himself 
had deprecated in the case of Pitt. One gentleman, 
Mr. Bankes, one of the party called the Saints, the 
leadership of wdiich Wilberforce had once invited 
Canning to take, thought it becoming to propose that 
the expenses of the battle of Navarino, which had been 
fought two months after Canning's death, and of the 
[Mediterranean fleet should be charged to Canning's 
family. After two days' debate the annuity was voted. 
The elder of the two surviving sons, a captain in the 
Nav}-, died in the year following his father's death, 
being drowned while bathing at Madeira. The second 
was the Governor-General of India during the Mutiny. 
Canning's widow, who survived him ten years, was 
created a Alscountess. Her son w^as raised to an 
earldom in recognition of his services in India. With 
his death the male line of George Canning became 
extinct. Canning's only daughter married the late 
Marquis of Clanricarde, afterwards a member of one 
of Lord Palmerston's Cabinets, and it is in the veins 
of her descendants only tliat the blood of Canning 
still runs. Among them are the present Marquis of 
Clanricarde, who has added the name of Canning to the 
family name of De Burgh, and the Countess of Hare- 
wood, the Countess of Cork, and Lady Margaret 
Wentworth Beaumont, the grandson and the grand- 
daughters of the statesman. Since the death of Lord 
Stratford de Redcliffe, the Anglo-Irish family which 



198 George Canning 

gave birth to the great diplomatist, and the greater 
statesman, has been represented by the Barons Garvagh 
of Ireland. The Cannings of Foxcote, in Warwick- 
shire, survived in male representatives until the middle 
of the present century, one of them being, in contra- 
diction to the politics of his illustrious kinsman, an 
ardent parliamentary reformer in 1832, The family 
merged in heiresses, one of whom married Mr. Philip 
Howard, of Corby, in Cumberland, and another Mr. 
Gordon, of Milrig, who added the name of Canning to 
his own. 



199 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

ORATOll AND STATESMAN — IN FRIVATE LIFE. 

The 2^1ace of Canning among parliamentary orators is 
difficult to determine. Contemporaries differed about 
it, and later critics liave shared tlieir differences of 
opinion. Sir James Mackintosh reckoned liim in 
many respects Pitt's superior. Wilberforce, however, 
though full of personal liking for the man, says that 
he never drew you to him in spite of yourself, and 
Lord Brougham expresses the same opinion. ' An 
actor stood before us — a first-rate actor, no doubt, but 
still an actor, and we never forgot that it was a repre- 
sentation we were witnessing, not a real scene.' 
On the other hand, Sir George Cornewall Lewis 
thinks that Canning as an orator has never been sur- 
passed, and doubts whether he has ever been equalled 
among English statesmen. It is difficult to judge of 
Canning's eloquence from his printed speeches. In 
preparing them for the press he added and altered to 
excess, requiring a second and third revise. The 
printers found it easier to reset the matter from be- 
ginning to end than to introduce his corrections. Some 
of these corrections showed a false taste, worthy of 
Lily and Elorio, or their fictitious counterparts in 
' Love's Labour's Lost.' Canning was almost literally 



200 



George Caxnixg 



afraid to call a spade a spade. A catspaw became 
' the paw of a certain domestic animal ; ' so, for some 
mysterious reason, a ' Quixotic ' undertaking became 
' an enterprise romantic in its origin and thankless in 
its end, to be characterised only by a term borrowed 
from that part of Spanish literature with which we are 
most familiar.' The nearest parallel to these improve- 
ments is to be found in the suggestion of the alderman 
that Canning should substitute for the words ' he died 
poor,' in his inscription on the monument of Pitt in the 
Guildhall, the more delicate expression, ' he died in 
indifferent circumstances.' The correct instinct of the 
orator was overpowered by the false taste of a man of 
letters trained in an artificial literary school. 

Canning's preparation of his speeches was in his 
later years at least as elaborate as his revision of them 
in print. At the beginning of his parliamentary career 
he seems to have been more confident or careless. But, 
as has been the case with later orators, the weight 
of a reputation to sustain, and of responsibility for the 
moulding of opinion, pressed upon him and depressed 
him. He was uneasy for three or four days when the 
speech was forming itself in his mind, and at these 
tim.es, as his private secretary and political apologist, 
Mr. Stapleton, testifies, it was unsafe to approach him 
on any matter not bearing upon the discourse which was 
shaping itself within him. He was taciturn and moody 
as he went down to the House. The speech once 
delivered, he recovered his gaiety. Canning did not 
write out his speeches, but he jotted down the heads on 
which he intended to touch with great minuteness of 
subdivision and in the order of treatmentj and he took 



Orator axd Statesman 201 

tlie paper containing these memoranda to the House 
with him, and spoke from it. Sometimes the heads of 
the speech, carefully numbered, amounted to between 
four and five hundred. The following are a part of the 
memoranda for a speech against a motion of Mr. 
Lambton's for Parliamentary Reform, which the acci- 
dental and premature ' drying up ' of Mr. Vansittart 
prevented Canning from delivering : — 

391. But in or out of office. 

392. The Constitution is my object of worship. 

393. And in this her temple. 

394. For that obloquy. 

395. For that demonstration. 

396. For that designation, and pretty well know by 
what pen, to the dagger of the assassin. 

397. But let it pass ; the danger and the scorn. 

398. Let them rail, or let them repent. 

399. My cause is the same. 

400. And while I have the strength, I desire no other 
duty than that of doing my best in defence of a form of 
Government which, if destroyed, could not be replaced, and 
which may yet afford shelter and glory to generations who 
will know how to value and preserve it. 

Canning does not appear, so far as can be judged 
from the extracts of memoranda for his speeches which 
have been published, to have put down the good things 
which he intended to say, the seeming impromptus, 
the epigrams, the illustrations, the declamatory passages 
or the passages of sustained banter by which they are 
now chiefly remembered. For the form and the manner 
of introduction he seems to have trusted to the chance 
of the moment. In this he was unlike Sheridan. Before 



202 George Caxxixg 

Sheridan ventured to tell Dundas that he took his facts 
from his imagination and his fancies from his memory, 
he had tried the saying, with proper adaptation, on a 
wine merchant, and it appears in two or three tentative 
forms in his note-book. Canning's wit seems really to 
have sprung voluntarily out of the circumstances of the 
debate, and not to have been dragged by a sort of 
conscription or press-gang into forced sei'vice. His 
theory of parliamentary speaking was sound. ' Speak- 
ing,' he told Mr. Rush, who was American Minister in 
England during Mr. Canning's second tenure of the 
Foreign Office, and who fortunately published a journal 
of his residence at the Court of St. James's, ' must take 
conversation as its basis rather than anything studied 
or stately. The House was a business-doing body, 
and the speaking must conform to its character ; it was 
jealous of ornament in debate, which, if it came at all, 
must come as without consciousness. There must be 
method also, but this should be felt in the effect rather 
than felt in the manner ; no formal divisions, set exor- 
diums, or perorations, as the old rhetoricians taught, 
would do. First, and last, and everywhere you must 
aim at reasoning, and if you could be eloquent you 
might at any time, but not at an appointed time.' 
Canning's practice in the main conformed to his theory. 
His speeches were always argumentative speeches. 
Lord Holland called him the first logician in Europe, 
and there is probably a nearer ajDproach to truth in 
this statement than there is in Sir George Lewis's 
recognition of him as the greatest of English parlia- 
mentary orators. The common idea that Canning's 
eloquence was of the imaginative and sportive rather 



Okatur and SrATEs^fAy 203 

than of tlie reasoning order is clue to the fact that 
the fancy and the wit grew too copiously out of the 
argument, and that many minds which could not follow 
the one were capable of being tickled and diverted 
by the other. The faculty of exact thought, and the 
mastery over long and difficult processes of reasoning, 
which formed the foundation of Canning's intellectual 
character, were exhibited in their naked simplicity in 
the speech on the Bullion question, which Lord 
Brougham held to be the most masterly Canning ever 
made on anj^ subject, and the most masterly any one 
ever made on that subject. The same characteristic 
marks his purely j^olitical writings. His despatches 
during his second tenure of the Foreign Office laid 
down and vindicated the lines of his European policy 
mtli a masculine simplicity of form and grasp of prin- 
ciple which make them not less classics of international 
statesmanship than the judgments of Lord Stowell are 
classics of international law. 

It is impossible to illustrate by examples a chain of 
reasoning, or effectively to exhibit a principle separated 
from the circumstances in which it is to be applied. 
But the wit and humour with which Canning enlivened 
the debates, and the imagination and fancy with which 
he elevated and adorned them, do admit of beino' 
exhibited without being extinguished by the detach- 
ment. In ]\Iarch 182-i a debate took place, on the 
motion of Lord John Kussell, with respect to the 
evacuation of Spain by the French army, and a question 
arose as to the conduct of some Englishmen, Sir Robert 
Wilson, Lord ISTugent, and others who had volunteered 
for service with the Spanish 2)atriots. Lord Nugent, 



204 George Canxing 

who belonged to the House of Buckingham, had more 
than a younger son's or brother's portion of the cor- 
pulence which marked the Grenville family, and espe- 
cially the ' Phat Duke,' as Canning loved to spell him. 
Canning relieved an elaborate argument on international 
law and the obligation of neutrality by a narrative of 
the adventures of Lord Nugent. After describing Sir 
Robert Wilson as no small breach of neutrality, and 
speaking of Lord Nugent as a most enormous breach 
of it, he went on : — 

It was about the middle of last July that the heavy 
Falmouth coach (loud and long-continued laughter) — that 
the heavy Falmouth coach was observed travelling to its 
destination through the roads of Cornwall with more than 
its usual gravity. (Loud laughter.) There were, according 
to the best advices, two inside passengers (laughter) — one a 
lady of no considerable dimensions (laughter), and a gentle- 
man, who, as it has been since ascertained, was conveying 
the succour of his person to Spain (cheers and laughter). 
I am informed — and, having no reason to doubt my in- 
formant, I firmly believe it — that in the van belonging to the 
coach (gentlemen must know the nature and uses of that 
auxiliary to the regular stage-coaches) was a box more 
bulky than ordinary, and of most portentous contents. It 
Avas observed that, after their arrival, this box and the pas- 
senger before mentioned became inseparable. This box 
was known to have contained the uniform of a Spanish 
general of cavalry (much laughter) ; and it was said of the 
helmet, which was beyond the usual size, that it exceeded 
all other helmets spoken of in history, not excepting the 
celebrated helmet in the ' Castle of Otranto ' (cheers and 
laughter). The idea of going to the relief of a fortress 
blockaded by sea and besieged by land with the uniform of 



Orator and Statesman 205 

a light cavalry officer was new, to say the least of it. 
About this time the force offered by the hon. gentleman, 
which had never existed but on paper, was in all probability 
expected. I will not stay to determine whether it was to 
have consisted of 10,000 or 5,000 men. No doubt upon the 
arrival of the General and his uniform the Cortes must 
have rubbed their hands with satisfaction, and concluded 
that now the promised force was come they would have 
little more to fear (laughter). It did come, as much of it 
as ever would have been seen by the Cortes and the King ; 
but it came in that sense and no other which was described 
by a worthy nobleman, George, Duke of Buckingham, whom 
the noble lord opposite (Lord Nugent) reckons among his 
lineal ancestors. In the play of ' The Rehearsal ' there is a 
scene occupied by the designs of two usurpers, to whom one 
of their party, entering, says : — 

Sirs, 
The army at the door, but in disguise. 
Entreats a word of both your majesties. 

(liOud and continued laughter.) Such must have been the 
effect of the arrival of the noble lord. How he was 
received, or what effect he operated on the councils and affairs 
of the Cortes by his arrival, I do not know. Things were 
at that juncture moving too rapidly to their final issue. 
How far the noble lord conduced to the termination by 
plumping his weight into the sinking scale of the Cortes is 
too nice a question for me just now to settle. (Loud cheers 
and laughter.) 

Mr. Canning then proceeded soberly with his argu- 
ment as to the impossibility of allowing individuals to 
carry on a private war w^itli governments with which 
their own is in amity. But the impression was jDro- 
bably made on not a few Sir Johns and Sir Thomases 



2o6 Georgr Canning 

tliat the whole thing was a joke, and Canning only a 
very good joker of jokes. 

Of Canning's eloquence in its loftier moods, one or 
two passages have become the commonplaces of rhe- 
torical extracts. The most celebrated, perhaps, is that 
in which, in the speech of December 12, 1826, he 
defended his policy in not going to war with France 
against her invasion of Spain, and in recognising the 
independence of the Spanish- American colonies : — 

Is the Spain of the present day the Spain of which the 
statesmen of the times of William and Anne were so much 
afraid % Is it, indeed, the nation whose puissance was ex- 
pected to shake England from her sphere 1 No, sir, it was 
quite another Spain — it was the Spain within the limits of 
whose empire the sun never set ; it was Spain with the Indies 
that excited the jealousies and alarmed the imaginations of 
our ancestors. ... If France conquered Spain, was it 
necessary, in order to avoid the consequences of that occu- 
pation, that we should blockade Cadiz % No, I looked 
another way ; I sought the materials of compensation in 
another hemisphere. Contemplating Spain, such as our 
ancestors had known her, I resolved that, if France had 
Spain, it should not be Spain with the Indies. I called the 
New World into existence to redress the balance of the Old. 

Perhaps these sentences belong to the things which, 
though ' finely thought," are ' superfinely said.' There 
is, moreover, a certain tone of egotism, as if Canning 
had absolutely created the American continent in recog- 
nising Spanish- American independence and by sending 
out consuls to South American ports and ministers to 
South American cajDitals, and making commercial trea- 
ties. Carlyle describes a picture of MaujiertuiSj who 



Orator and Statesman 207 

discovered the flatness of tlie eartli at the poles, with 
his hand upon the globe, ' comfortably squeezing the 
earth and her meridians flat (as if he had done it) with 
]iis left hand ; and with the other, and its outstretched 
finger, asking mankind, " Are you not aware, then ? '' ' 
I^erhaps there was something in this assumption to 
have created what he recognised — though in diplomacy 
recognition is sometimes creation — which assimilates 
Canning's attitude to that of Maupertuis. He seems 
to stand with his hand on the globe, pointing to South 
America, as if he had literally called it out of the deep 
and bid the dry land appear. The phrase and the 
posture are theatrical. But the momentary impression 
probably was greater than any that has ever been made 
in the House of Commons. One who was present savs 
it was terrific \- — 

It was us if every man in the House had iDeen electri- 
fied. Tierney, who before that was shifting in his seat, and 
taking off his hat and putting it on again, and taking large 
and frequent pinches of snuft', and turning from side to side, 
till, I suppose, he wore his breeches through, seemed petri- 
fied, and sat fixed, and staring with his mouth open for half 
a minute ! Mr. Canning seemed to have increased in 
stature, his attitude was so majestic. I remarked his 
flourishes were made with his left arm ; the effect was new 
and beautiful ; his chest heaved and expanded, his nostrils 
dilated, a noble pride slightly curved his lips, and age and 
sickness were dissolved and forgotten in the ardour of 
youthful genius ; all the while a serenity sat on his brow 
that pointed to deeds of glory. 

The occasion was an exception to the rule — if it 
was the rule — stated by Wilberforce and Brougham — 



2o8 George Canning 

that Canning failed to carry his audience with him. 
But it does not seem to be an exception to Brougham's 
statement that Canning never forgot himself. The ' I ' 
— the ' adsum qui feci ' — is very prominent in it. The 
theatrical character of Canning's eloquence is conspi- 
cuous. The electrical effect suggests the triumphs of 
the stage rather than of the Senate — the pit rising at 
Kean in Shylock rather than Parliament carried away 
unresisting and spellbound by the rush of Fox's rapid 
and impassioned reasoning. 

An even finer passage, and one in which there is 
less of the first person singular — more of England and 
less of Canning — is that in which, in a speech delivered 
at Plymouth in 1823, he illustrated the quietude in 
repose which seems the contradiction, but is yet the 
guarantee, of strength in action : — 

Our present repose is no more a proof of inability to act 
than the state of inertness and inactivity in which T have 
seen those mighty masses that float in the waters above 
your town is a proof that they are devoid of strength and 
incapable of being fitted out for action. You well knov/, 
gentlemen, how soon one of those stupendous masses, now 
reposing on their shadows in perfect stillness — how soon, 
upon any call of patriotism or necessity, it would assume 
the likeness of an animated being, instinct with life and 
motion — how soon it would rufile, as it were, its swelling 
plumage ! How quickly it would put forth all its beauty 
and its bravery, collect its scattered elements of strength 
and awaken its dormant thunder. Such as one of those 
magnificent machines when springing from inaction into a 
display of its might — such is England herself, while appa- 
rently passive and motionless, she silently concentrates the 
power to be put forth on an adequate occasion. 



Okatok axd Statesman 209 

In the physical qualifications of oratory. Canning 
probably has never had an equal among English states- 
men. His style and manner may not incorrectly be 
described as intermediate between that of Pitt and that 
of Fox, and his mind and temper lay in a mean be- 
tween theirs. Pitt's intelligence, like his figure, was 
linear — length without breadth — projecting itself for- 
ward in a narrow channel of thought. His gestures, 
stiff and angular, were like those of a marionette, and 
his hearers seemed to feel the shock of the jerking 
wires. As he turned round to his supporters to invite 
their cheers, he looked, someone has said, as if he were 
moving on a pivot. He thought in precise and logical 
alternatives, which seemed a sort of common form pro- 
vided for the reception of any kind of matter. Fox's 
corpulence, his black and beetling brows, his ungainly 
attitudes, his unmanageable voice, now rumbling bass, 
now shrill treble, his ungraceful movement, swayiug and 
tossing to and fro, his lack of fluency and of order in 
speech until the impulse of conviction and the force of 
logic drove him forward — made him in every respect the 
direct contrast of the mechanical and automatic reo-u- 
larity of Pitt. His instantaneous perception of all the 
aspects of a question, if not for purposes of action 3-et 
for purposes of debate, his intuition, which seemed to 
see in one glance the whole of which Pitt thought out 
a part in succession and in logical forms, embarrassed 
him at first and made his speech confused, until order 
introduced itself into the thronging crowd of ideas and 
arguments which bore along with it, as in a current 
steady in its flow though stormy on its surface, the con- 
victions and feelings of his audience. Canning's oratory 

P 



210 George Canning 

liad neither tlie mechanical regularity of Pitt's nor the 
disorclered force of Fox's ; it fell short in power of 
either — wanting the majestic self-command and dicta- 
torial authority of the first, and the rush and sweep of 
the second. But it was more varied. His demeanour 
was equally remote from Pitt's unbending rigidity and 
Fox's want of control. Canning's presence was striking. 
He was of commanding height, and though with a 
little tendency to looseness and weediness of figure, 
well if slightly built. His bearing was elastic — alert 
in movement, in repose full of grace. Every feature 
spoke, flashing thought and feeling upon his hearers in 
advance of the words. His articulation was delicate 
and 231'ecise. His voice, clear and penetrating, though 
a little veiled, lent itself to every emotion of indigna- 
tion, of pathos, of drollery ; and the curl of the lips 
and the glance of the eye interpreted the voice. He 
hesitated a little in the beginning of his s^Deeches. 
When animation became excitement, his gestures were 
the reverse of impressive, consisting of an alternate 
movement, awkward and vehement, of the two arms, 
accompanied by a sounding and, it seemed, sometimes 
bruising slap on the table before him. His return to 
a quieter mood was marked by folding his arms across 
his breast — the attitude in which he is painted by Sir 
Thomas Lawrence. 

Canning was a careful observer of the temper of the 
House of Commons, carrying into this study the minute- 
ness and patience which he showed in all his pursuits. 
At times he w^ould sit with hat slouched over his face, 
keenly noting every incident of a long debate. But 
some little time before speaking it was Canning's 



Orator and Statesman 211 

habit, Sir Robert Peel said, to lounge into the lobbies 
and listen to the conversations to which the previous 
course of the debate had given rise, and to pick up, as 
the phrase is, the general sense of the House, which, 
when his turn came to speak, he set himself to express 
or to combat. Yet, with all this desire to put himself 
into relations with it, he was worsted in succession by 
Perceval and Castlereagh in his contest for the leader- 
ship ; and when Castlereagh's death left the ^^ost free to 
him, he practically yielded it to Peel and Robinson, 
whose authority and influence with the Tory party were 
greater than his own. The fact that during the last 
five years of the Liverpool Administration Canning 
was absorbed in foreign affairs, while Peel as Home 
Secretary, and Robinson as Chancellor of the Ex- 
chequer, had naturally more concern with the domestic 
topics which mainly engage the House of Commons, had 
much to do, probably, with this virtual abnegation of the 
leadership on Canning's part. The suspicion and dislike 
of Eldon and Wellington, who mouopolisecl between them 
the legal, ecclesiastical, and military patronage of the 
Crown, and who preferred to communicate with Peel, 
must also be taken into account. 

The genuineness of Canning's Toryism was dis- 
trusted ; he was believed to be an intriguer and self- 
seeker. He was gravely suspected of meditating a 
desertion from the Tory party, and preparing for a coali- 
tion of himself and his followers with the Whigs. His 
colleagues complained to Lord Liverpool, it is said, of the 
advances which Canning was always making to the Op- 
position, and of his efforts to ingratiate himself with its 
younger members by compliment, encouragement, and 



212 George Canning 

advice. But, above all, it was the flavour of contempt 
which ran through Canning's mind, and w^as impressed 
on his speech, that alienated men. The House of Com- 
mons is not, and never has been, jealous of superiority. 
It recognises it and welcomes it ; it is proud of it as a 
possession of its own ; but it resents a too conscious 
superiority. It was irritated by little impertinences of 
manner and phrase, certain scornful carelessnesses by 
which, probably. Canning meant nothing, and of which 
he was not even aware. Richard Sharp said of him that, 
up to a certain time, he never made a speech without 
making an enemy. Yet he endeavoured, and to some 
extent succeeded in the effort, to restrain himself. Sir 
T. Fowell Buxton, who used sometimes to sit near him in 
the House of Commons, said that during the debate 
he would keep up a current of whispered criticisms 
which, if introduced into a speech, would have con- 
vulsed the House with merriment, and have over- 
whelmed his opponent. When he got up, though he 
approached the dangerous ground, he kept off it. But 
he could not always keep off it ; and this, no doubt, is 
what one of his candid friends meant when he said that 
Canning could never be a gentleman for three hours 
at a time. The fault is, perhaps, as much with the 
people who have ridiculous sides to their character, as 
with those who see the ridiculous sides. Canning, in a 
word, was not intelligible to the House ; his character 
and aims were a mystery to them, the heart of which 
they were unable to pluck out ; and to hate what you 
do not understand is a common failing. Ignorance is 
as often the mother of dislike as of devotion. 

Canning's political position has been the subject of 



Orator and Statesman 213 

a good deal of controversy. In trutli, lie cannot pro- 
perly be assigned to either of the great parties of the 
State. When he began parliamentary life it was as a 
personal follower of Mr. Pitt ; so he describes his 
mental position in a letter written while he was yet a 
student at Lincoln's Inn. Even while Mr. Pitt lived 
he had become tired of this dependence. On Pitt's 
death he asserted his entire freedom. His allegiance, 
he said, was buried in Pitt's grave, and he acknowledged 
no other leader. Like Chatham, and like Pitt himself 
in his earlier days, he especially set himself against 
the pretension of tlie two great aristocratic parties to 
monopolise the offices and control the policy of the 
State. ' To this exclusive doctrine,' he said, ' I have 
never subscribed. To those pretensions I have never 
listened with submission.' And he declared with 
Burke, but with more consistency than Burke, that 
while he had the faculty to think and act for himself 
he would ' look those proud combinations in the face.' 
Lord Holland, as has been already mentioned, told 
Greville that at college Canning was a great Jacobin, 
and hated the aristocracy — a feeling which seems 
always to have existed among statesmen who have 
lived among the aristocracy without being of them. 
This feeling Lord Holland implied never left Canning, 
and it was returned with interest, Greville intimates, 
by its objects. To the principle of conduct asserted 
at the beginning of his political career, and reasserted 
with emphasis during its course, he was true to the 
last. In the last year of his life, while he was engaged 
in the formation of his Ministry, Mr. Croker sent him 
a list of great Tory lords, with a statement of the votes 



214 George Canning 

tliey commanded, and urgent advice to come to an 
understanding witli them. Canning was indignant. 
If the King, he said, was to be considered as completely 
in the hands of the Tories as George II. was in those 
of the Whigs, then George III. had reigned and the 
two Pitts had administered the Government in vain. 
Against these ^^I'etensions he relies not merely on the 
Crown, but on the body of the people. ' And whether 
in or out of office,' he adds, ' I will not act, as I never 
have acted, as the tool of any confederacy, however 
powerful, nor will I submit to insult, without resenting 
it to the best of my poor ability, from any member of 
such confederac}', be he who he may.' As to the votes 
which the Tory peers command, Croker's list requires 
a commentary, and in the spirit of a modern financial 
reformer he asks Croker to ' add to these names the 
price that the Government pays for their support in 
army, navy, church and law, excise and customs, &c., 
and then calculate what number of unconnected votes 
the same 23rice substituted among others would purchase 
if the Crown were free.' 

Great aristocratic parties are seldom disposed to 
recognise the claims of others than those who belong 
to them by birth, or who are content to place them- 
selves at their disposal, and to serve them humbly for 
recognition and for hire. Canning never accepted this 
position. He asserted himself, and he was called an 
adventurer. He endeavoured to promote his own 
interests by j^ersonal arrangements and combinations, 
and he was charged with intrigue and treacherous 
machinations. Occasionally, perhaps, self-assertion 
became self-seeking, and he advanced to his aim by 



Orator and Statesman 215 

indirect and secret paths. But lie was never a flatterer 
of any great chief — not even of Pitt ; he did not conceal 
his contempt for birth without brains, and the arts of 
social courtiership were not practised by him. He 
kept his social gifts and charms for his own house and 
his friends, and did not hire them out for the entertain- 
ment of the nobility and gentr3\ To his resolution to 
assert himself, and to be independent of chiefs and 
parties, may be attributed in part at least the personal 
misunderstandings and jealousies which accompanied 
him through his political life. 

It would be difficult to extract from Canning's 
speeches or to see in his career any consistent scheme 
of partisan doctrine. The opponent of parliamentary 
reform and of the removal of Nonconformist disabilities 
cannot be called a Liberal ; the advocate of the Roman 
Catholic claims, the antagonist of the Holy Alliance, 
the promoter of Free Trade cannot be called a Tory. 
Lord Beaconsfield once said that, while the Tories are 
a national party the Liberals are a cosmopolitan party. 
Like most sweeping assertions, the phrase extends into 
a false historic generalisation, a statement which at the 
most had a momentary truth of description. Among 
Whig chiefs, Chatham, Palmerston, and Russell were 
essentially national. The younger Pitt, in spite of 
his war policy, Peel, and Aberdeen were, in a certain 
sense, cosmopolitan. Canning represents the intensest 
form of national feeling. He was above all things an 
Englishman. To him a man is an Englishman or a 
Frenchman first, and anything and everything or 
nothing else afterwards. His character is formed by 
his native tongue, with its associations and suggestions, 



^i6 George Canning 

by the historic traditions which he has inherited, by 
the institutions which he sees about him and which 
give shape and direction to his life. These things are 
sacred. When you strip them off you get something 
as unreal as Arbuthnot's abstract idea of a Lord Mayor 
apart from his ring, his gown, his coach, his stature, 
his hair, eyes, and anything else that is his. Each 
nation has its own law of life, good for itself, bad for 
any other. S}mrtam nactus es : hanc exorna. For this 
reason Canning, while w^elcoming national uprisings 
against foreign or external domination in Spain, in 
Greece, in South America, objected to the propaganda 
by pen or by sword of French principles and ideas in 
other countries. In theory, he did not contend for 
the suppression of French principles in France. They 
might be good there, though he did not think they 
were ; but they were bad elsewhere, because they were 
out of relation with the existing moral and social order, 
and with the traditions which have become a part not 
only of the general life of the nation, but of the in- 
dividual life of every one in it. A i)/.^-senter, a Noii- 
conformist was, therefore, in his eyes, though most un- 
reasonably, an objectionable person — a sort of social and 
religious rebel, who ought not, perhaps, to be persecuted, 
but who ought not to be legally acknowledged if it can 
be helped. He might at best be connived at. The 
Roman Catholic Church, on the other hand, at all 
events in a Roman Catholic country like Ireland, was 
a great institution moulding the life of its people, and 
entitled to recognition and to freedom. 

The principle which made Canning the antagonist 
of the propaganda of French principles in Europe during 



Orator axd Statesmax 



217 



the earlier part of his political life made him during his 
later years in an equal degree the antagonist of the 
principles of the Holy Alliance, which it is his great 
glory as a statesman to have defeated. The Holy Alliance 
endeavoured to impose upon other nations principles and 
a law of life not their own. As Canning objected to th(^ 
Holy Alliance, so he would have objected to its recent 
secular substitute, the Concert of Europe, which simply 
means the agreement of the Clreat Powers to inflict 
their will upon the small ones, not allowing them to de- 
velop according to their native forces and genius, but 
constraining them into such forms and confining them 
within such limits as suits the convenience of a despotic 
hexarchy of States, or of a majority of them. The 
country which is England at home should be England 
abroad, reserving all its freedom of action. Canning's 
foreign policy, which was for ' Europe ' to read ' Eng- 
land,' and to ' get rid of Areopagus and all that,' was 
sound and statesmanlike, and abundantly justified in 
its results. 

Viewing the political institutions which he found in 
existence as the shelter and organs of the national life, 
supplying the channels through which it flowed and 
inseparable from it as the body of the spirit, Canning 
was jealous of any attempt to touch them, and was, 
therefore, an anti-Eeformer. But he did not object to 
parliamentary reform on this ground only. The ten- 
dency of the doctrines preached by the parliamentary 
reformers, he said, ' is not to make a House of Commons 
such as in theory it has always been defined — a third 
branch of the Legislature — but to absorb the legislative 
and the executive powers into one ; to create an imme- 



2i8 George Canning 

diate delegation of tlie wliole aiitliority of the people, 
to which practically nothing could, and in reasoning 
nothing ought to, stand in opposition.' Perfectly true ; 
what Canning foresaw has come to pass. The three 
powers in the State are now the Prime Minister, the 
Cabinet, and the Commons. A truer enumeration might 
reduce them to two— the Prime Minister and the 
Caucus. The authority, not of the Crown only, but 
of both Houses, is declining. There is little now to 
prevent a demagogic dictatorship surprising the country' 
into decisions which it may take in one Parliament to 
repent in the next. The need of the age is to restore 
or supply elements which shall not contradict public 
opinion, but which shall give it time to mature itself, 
and to chasten momentary impulse into deliberate con- 
viction. Probably Canning would not have dissented 
from this doctrine if the issue had been near enough to 
engage his statesmanship. The one check he would 
not tolerate was an oligarchical domination. When he 
was preparing to go to India, he told Lord Holland 
that he saw that reform was inevitable, that he was 
glad to be away while the question was being mooted, 
but that if he had any hand in it he would let those 
gentry (the Whig aristocracy) know that they should 
gain nothing by it. According to another version 
of the same story, he told Lord Holland that, if the 
settlement of the Reform question should fall upon him, 
he would give the Radicals a dose too strong for their 
stomachs, adding that the break-up of the Whig and 
Tory parties, which he foresaw as the result of the 
struggle, would give him a position of advantage such 
as he never had before. Both those versions of Canning's 



Orator axd Statesman 219 

language are given on tlie direct authority of Lord 
Holland. Frere protests that Canning, though not a 
parliamentary reformer, was in other respects a true 
reformer hindered by incompetent colleagues. Asked by 
Frere what had become of the Liberal measures which 
Pitt and he had contemplated, but of which the Whigs 
claimed the credit, Canning pointed to his colleagues : 
' What can I churn out of such skim-milk as that ? ' 

In the Cabinet, on the testimony of the Duke of 
W^ellington, Canning was habitually silent, possibly 
because, having made up his mind, and being deter- 
mined to take his own way, and having a not very 
respectful estimate of the abilities of his colleagues, he 
did not care to talk to them. He could not, however, 
accordiup' to the Duke, bear the slio'htest contradiction 
or difference of opinion, and to avoid outrageous out- 
breaks the Duke found it necessary to hold his own 
tongue too. Lord Liverpool was the chief sufferer both 
from Canning's tongue and Canning's pen, and used to 
recognise his handwriting with a pang of apprehension. 
As to his despatches, where one would have thought his 
literary sensitiveness would have shown itself, he was 
very patient, allowing them to be criticised and pulled 
about with the utmost good nature. The Duke of 
Wellington, against life-long evidence, represents him 
as the idlest of men ; Greville describes him as never 
having a moment unoccupied. His power at once of 
concentrating and dividing attention was so great 
that he could dictate simultaneously three despatches 
to three secretaries, speaking faster than they could 
write. 

Whatever his failures of temper in the Cabinet and 



220 George Cannixg 

ill the House of Commons, lie was a courteous and 
deferential host. On the death of the Duchess of 
Gloucester, in 1807, the year in which he became 
Foreign Secretary, Canning purchased Gloucester Lodge 
from her daughter, the Princess Sophia. The house 
stood about two miles from London, as London then 
was, between Brompton and Kensington, in a spot 
known as Florida Gardens. It had formerly been 
known from the name of the Duchess, and from the 
Italian style in which it was built, as Villa Maria. The 
Florida Gardens were a sort of minor Ranelagh, inter- 
mediate between that place and town, before they 
became the site of Gloucester Lodge. Mr. Rush, then 
American Minister in London, describes the place in 
his Journal. ' The grounds about the house,' he says, 
' were not extensive, but they were shut in by trees, so 
that when the gates were passed the seclusion was 
complete,' a feature upon which he remarks as the charm 
of many villa residences near London. He describes 
Canning as host, noting the cordiality of his welcome 
and the grace and skill with which, sitting at the head 
of the table, he contrived to keep all his guests in view, 
and, saving for an occasional flash of pleasantry, mainly 
directed his own conversational power to the task of 
drawing out that of others. He was ' in private circles 
bland, courteous, yielding.' The sort of restraint and 
subordination of himself to others which Mr. Rush 
noted in Canning as a host were not, according to a 
writer in the ' Quarterly Review," always observed by 
him. The author of this article, which was published 
less than nine years after Canning's death, speaks of 
the charm of his frank, open, and cordial manner. 



In Private Life 221 

and of liis nnaffected honliomiG. ' Then (he adds) his 
fund of animal spirits and the extreme excitability of 
his temperament were such as invariably to hurry him, 
nolentem volentem, into the full rush and flush of con- 
viviality. At the latter period of his life, when his 
health began to break, he would sit down with an 
evident determination to be abstinent — eat sparingly of 
the simplest soup, take no sauce with his fish, and mix 
water with his wine ; but as the repartee began to 
sparkle and the anecdote to circulate, his assumed 
caution was imperceptibly relaxed, he gradually gave 
way to temptation, and commonly ended b}' eating 
of everything and taking wine with everybody — the 
very bean ideal of an Amphitryon.' 

The last word indicates that Canning is here 
described as he showed himself at home ; and he, as 
already remarked, was seldom to be seen elsewhere in 
society. Writing from Paris in 1826, and describing 
the cordiality of his reception by the King, princes, 
Ministers, and ultras of all parties, he adds : ' Mrs. 
Canning is well, and has seen more of Paris within this 
month than of London since she was married. For 
my own part, I would not run the evening rounds in 
London which I cannot avoid here for any consideration, 
whether of politics or pleasure.' Li fact, except on 
those state and ceremonial occasions which commanded 
his presence. Canning was seldom to be seen elsewhere 
than at home or in the houses of a very limited circle 
of friends. When Sydney Smith, in a spiteful and 
untruthful passage of the ' Letters of Peter Plymley,' 
pretends to see nothing more in Canning than ' an 
extraordinary writer of small poetry and a diner-out of 



222 George Canxlxg 

tlie highest order,' inferior only to George Selwyn or 
Tickell during the last half century, he is, what 
Sydney Smith seldom was, ridiculous. Peter Plymley 
sinks almost to the level of Peter Pindar. Mr. Rush 
describes Canning's schoolboy playfulness when he was 
released from the House and from Downing Street. 
He had no thought of shining. 

Canning's literary tastes remained with him through 
life. When he and Pitt met they were soon buried in 
some classic. His correspondence with Sir Walter 
Scott turned mainly upon bookish topics ; and he had 
literature as much as politics in his mind in promoting 
the foundation of the ' Quarterly RevicAv.' His poli- 
tical antagonism with Chateaubriand, for whom he re- 
sponded at a dinner of the Literary Fund, was softened 
by common intellectual tastes, though, unlike Chateau- 
briand, he was a man of action first and a man of 
letters second. Like one of the most illustrious of his 
successors in the Premiership, he lived in — j^robably 
he could not have lived out of— an atmosphere of con- 
tention, and the noisiest brawls with Brougham or 
Hobhouse were more to his mind than Fox's book 
under a tree. Two articles in the ' Quarterly Review ' 
— one on Gifford's ' Life of Pitt ' and another in ridi- 
cule of Sir John Sinclair's bullion pam^^hlets — form, so 
far as I know, together with his verses of occasion, the 
complete works of Canning. In contrast with his 
theory, and especially with his master-passion for 
Dryden, his style was a little over ornate — the purple 
patch and the tinsel are in excess. 

Of Canning in his personal and domestic relations 
I have already spoken, but a few last words may be 



In Pri va te Life 223 

added. Wilberforce pays a surprised tribute to his 
moral purity. His persistent care for his mother was 
touchingly shown in the injunction contained in his 
will : '■ I earnestly entreat Joan [his wife] to pay to my 
mother 2,000?., or, what I should prefer if it can be 
secured, an annuity of 300?. during her life.' The 
mother died a few months before the son. His affec- 
tionate solicitude had accompanied her through life, 
but it was spared the need of posthumous guardianshi^D. 
His devotion to his wife and children was ardent and 
tender. The lines with which he expressed his grief 
and resignation on the loss of his eldest son, who died 
at nineteen after a life-long malady, leave him in 
attitude in which friend and foe, detractor and euloo'ist, 
may best part with him : — 

Oh ! mark'd from birth, and destin'd for the skies, 
In youth with more than learning's wisdom wise, 
As sainted martyrs, patient to endure, 
Simple as unweaned infancy, and pure — 
Pure from all stain, save that of human clay, 
Which Christ's atoning blood hath washed away \ 
By mortal suffering now no more opj)ress'd, 
Mount, sinless spirit, to thy destin'd rest, 
While I, reversed our natures' kindly doom, 
Pour forth a father's sorrows on thy tomb. 

To these words of peace and benediction, issuing, as 
it were, from the tranquil centre of a life of outer storm, 
I will add only a few of the memorial verses in which 
Frere signalised the struggles and triumphs of his 
friend : — 

Born with an ancient name of little worth. 

And disinherited before his birth — 



:24 George Canning 

A landless orphan — rank and wealth and pride 

Were freely ranged around him ; nor denied 

His clear precedence, and the warrant given 

Of nobler rank, stamped by the hand of Heaven, 

In every form of genius and of grace, 

In loftiness of thought, figure, and face. 

Such Cannin^TC was. 



INDEX. 



ABBOT 

Abbot, Mr. Speaker (after- 
wards Lord Colchester), 144 

Aberdeen, Earl of, 2 1 5 

Addington, ' Bolus,' 79 

Addington, Henry (afterwards 
Viscount Sidmonth), Speaker 
of the House of Commons, 48 ; 
Prime Minister, 74 ; Canning's 
intrigues against him and at- 
tacks on him, 74 seqq. ; their 
reconciliation, 84 ; his resigna- 
tion, 85 ; raised to the peerage 
as Viscount Sidmouth, and 
appointed Lord President in 
Pitt's second Administration, 
88 ; joins the Grenville-Fox 
Ministry, 93 ; exchanges the 
■office of Privy Seal for that of 
Lord President, 104 ; resigns 
office, 105 ; declines office 
under Perceval, 129, 132 ; be- 
comes again Lord Privy Seal, 
133 ; Home Secretary under 
Lord Liverpool, ] 50 ; pays tri- 
bute to Canning's ministerial 
efficiency, 157 ; resigns Home 
Secretaryship in favour of Mr. 
Peel, 158 ; his uneasy virtue, 
163 ; his domestic administra- 
tion, 165 

Addington, J. Hiley, 54, 62, 76, 
77, 79 

Addison, 11, 18 



BELGRAVE 

Alexander L, Emperor of Russia, 
114, 115, 178 

Alliance, Holv, Canning's hos- 
tility to, 152, 166-68, 172, 178, 
217 

Alopeus, M., Russian Ambas- 
sador, 109 

Althorp, Viscount (afterwards 
Earl Spencer), 164 

Amelia, Princess, 130 

Amiens, Peace of, 55, 85 

Ancestry, Canning's, 1-7 

' Anti- Jacobin ' (newspaper), 60- 
68 ; its authors, 62 ; Canning's 
contributions to, 62-65 : com- 
pared with the ' Rolliad ' and 
with IMoore's satires, 65-66 ; 
aims of its writers, 67, 68 

Aristocrac.y, Canning's feeling 
towards^ 39, 136, 213-14 

Aust, Mr. Thomas, Under Secre- 
tary for Foreign Affairs, 54 

Bagot, Sir Charles, 161, 190 

Bankes, Mr., 130, 197 

Bar, Canning's intentions as to 

the, 23, 29, 39 
Barras, French Director, 57 
Bathurst, Mr. Bragge- (formerly 

Mr. Brayfge), 62, 76-77, 14S, 

158 
Bathurst, Lord, 121, 188 
Belgrave, Lord, 34 

Q 



226 



George Canning 



BELL 

Bell, Mr. Eobert, his Life of 
Canning referred to, 8 

Bellingham, the assassin, 135 

Berlin, Decree of, 112 

Bexley, Lord. See Vansittart 

Bishop's Canyng-e in Wiltshire, 1 

Board of Control. See Control 

Bolivar, General, 177 

Bordeaux, Canning at, 117 

Boringdon, Lord (afterwards 
Earl of Morlej'), his intimacy 
with Canning, 27, 31, 32 ; 
Canning's letters to and coni- 
munications to, 41, 12, 51, 97, 
100, 108, 158, 160 

Bourne, Sturges,resigns with Can- 
ning in 1809, 127 ; disapproves 
his conduct, 140 ; joins Liver- 
pool Administration,14o; Home 
Secretary under Canning, 188; 
First Commissioner of Woods 
and Forests, 189 

Bragge, Mr. See Bathurst 

Brougham, Henry (afterwards 
Lord), candidate for Liverpool, 
142 ; legal adviser of Queen 
Caroline, 152; su^Dports Can- 
ning's Ministiy, 190; on 
Canning's oratory, 199 ; on 
Canning's Bullion speech, 203 

Bryant, Jacob, 27 

Buckingham, first Duke of, 159 ; 
memoirs by second Dnke, 191 

Buckinghamshire, Earl of, 148 

Bull-baiting, Canning's speech 
on, 59 

Bullion Committee, 190 ; Can- 
nins's speech on its report, 
132^203 

Burdett, Sir Francis, 50, 146, 
190 

Burke, Edmund, 53, 213 

Burney, Frances (afterwards 
Madame d'Arblay), 13, 51 

Burrard, .Sir Harry, 116 

Buxton, Sir T. Fowell, on Can- 
ning's self-restraint, 212 



CAXXIXG 

Cabinet, mystification of, 56- 
57 ; lalace of, in the Constitu- 
tion, 93-96, 218 ; collective 
responsibility of, 174 

Camden, Lord, 121, 129 

Canning family, at Bishop's 
Canynge, 1 ; at Bristol and at 
Foxcote, 2 ; settled in Ulster, 
3-4 ; surviving branches of,. 
197, 198 

Canning, Earl, 197 

Canning, George, the father of 
the statesman, disinherited 
and settles in London, 3 ; his 
poems, pamphlets, and misfor- 
tunes, 3-7 ; his marriage, 5 ; 
his death, 7 

Canning, George, the statesman, 
his birth, 1 ; ancestry, 1-3 ; 
his father, 3-7 ; his mother, 5, 
7, 8, 9 ; adoption by his uncle, 
Mr. Stratford Canning, 10; his 
early years, 11 seqq. ; his school 
life at Hyde Abbey and Eton, 
11-16; verse-making, 11, 15, 

31, 32 ; fondness for acting,. 
12, 15 ; indifference to sports, 
15, 27 ; industry and good be- 
haviour, 11, 15; fondness for 
debating at Eton, 15, at Ox- 
ford, 27-29, and in London^ 
39 ; his contributions to the 
'Microcosm,' 16-22 ; enters at 
Lincoln's Lm and at Christ 
Church, Oxford, 23 ; his fellow- 
students at Christ Church, 26, 
27, 38 ; his habits as a student, 
27 ; member of the Speaking 
Society, 27 ; his reasons for 
leaving it, 28, 29 ; influence of 
Dean Jackson upon him, 26,. 
29 ; a lion in society, 30 ; early 
interest in the Slavery ques- 
tion, 32 ; ignorance of French, 

32, 33, 108-10 ; projected tour- 
in France, 32, 33; takes his 
degrees at Oxford, 33; prize- 



Index 



227 



CANNING 

poems, English and Latin, 33, 
34 ; his trainings entirely lite- 
rary, 35 seq(2. : his ignorance of 
natural history, 35 ; his dislike 
of Oxford, 37, 38 ; comes to 
London, 39 ; his early Whig- 
opinions, 39 ; conversion to 
Toryism, 40-42 ; his introduc- 
tion to Mr. Pitt, 46, 47 ; elect- 
ed member for Newtown, Isle 
of Wight, 47 ; politics in Eng- 
land when Canning- enters 
public life, 42-46 ; ridicules 
Mr. Addington as Speaker, 48 ; 
his maiden speech, 51, 52 ; 
other speeches, 52, 53 ; cha- 
racter of his early speaking-, 
51, 53 ; appointed Under Se- 
cretary for Foreign Affairs, 64 ; 
receives a valuable sinecure, 
54, 71 ; elected for Wendover, 
54 ; his official work, ih. ; inti- 
macy with Mr. Pitt, ih. ; rela- 
tions with Lord Malmesbury, 
56 ; intrigue against Lord 
Grenville, 56, 57; discontent 
with his official position, 57- 
59 ; his dislike of Lord Gren- 
ville, 57, 58 ; appointed to the 
India Board, 58 ; made joint 
Paymaster of the Forces, 59; 
on union with Ireland, 59 ; on 
bull-baiting, ih. ; resigns office 
on Pitt's retirement, ih. ; his 
contributions to the 'Anti- 
Jacobin,' 61-63 ; his poem 
' The New Morality ' charac- 
terised and quoted, 63-65 ; 
his attacks on Coleridge, 
Lamb, and Southey, 65, 67, 
68 ; his moral and political 
aims, 67; his literary judg- 
ments, 68, 222 ; his domestic 
relations, 69-73 ; alleged pen- 
sion to his mother, 69 ; Wolcot 
(Peter Pindar's) attacks upon 
him, 70-72 ; his marriage, 70 ; 



CANNING 

character of his wife, 70, 73, 
222 ; his relations with the 
Princess of Wales, 73 ; sits 
in the United Parliament for 
Tralee, 74 ; intrigues against 
Addington, ih. ; his attacks on 
him and others in the ' Oracle,' 
&c., 75-84 ; his preparation 
for his speeches, 75, 200 ; his 
dissatisfaction with Pitt's 
second Administration, 84 ; 
appointed Treasurer of the 
Navy, 86 ; his squibs against 
the Opposition leaders, 86, 87 ; 
his annoyance at Addington's 
admission into the Cabinet, 
88 ; his expectation of a seat 
in the Cabinet, 89; his last 
visit to Pitt, ih. ; his defence 
of Melville, 90; his squib on 
Whitbread, 90, 91 ; his quarrel 
with Hawkesbury and Wal- 
lace, 91 ; his devotion to 
Pitt's memory, and defence 
of him in the House of Com- 
mons, 92 ; his attack on Lord 
Chief Justice Ellenborough's 
admission to the Grenville- 
Fox Cabinet, 94 ; his doc- 
trine of Cabinet government, 
95 ; his attitude towards 
Grenville and Fox, 96, 99, 
105 ; abjures connection with 
the press, 97 ; his ' Elijah's 
Mantle,' 97-99 ; overtures of 
Grenville and Fox to, 100-101 ; 
his view of the King's place in 
the Government, 101, 105 ; 
refuses further proposals of 
Grenville, 102, 103; his ob- 
jection to Mr. Windham's 
military schemes, 105 ; his 
personal pretensions, 106-7 ; 
appointed Foreign Minister 
in the Portland Administra- 
tion, 107-8 ; disorganisation of 
Foreign Office, 110 ; his great 

Q 2 



228 



George Canning 



CANNING 

achievements as Foreign Min- 
ister, 111 ; plans the seizure 
of the Danish fieet, 113; his 
knowledge of the secret article 
of the Treaty of Tilsit, 114 ; 
defence of his conduct in 
House of Commons, 115 ; 
sends Sir Arthur Wellesley to 
the Peninsula, 116, 119; dis- 
approves the Convention of 
Cintra, 117; bis antagonism 
to Sir John Moore, 117-19; 
his disputes with Castlereaoh, 
117, 118, 121-24; his duel 
with him, 125-26; his ri- 
valry with Perceval, 122-25; 
his defeat by him and his 
resignation, 127 ; his relations 
with Lord Welleslej" and 
Hookham Frere, 128; over- 
tures of Perceval to him, 129 ; 
liis parliamentar}^ conduct out 
of office, 130 ; his course with 
respect to the Eegency Bill, 
131 ; farther ministerial over- 
tures to him, 132 ; his Bullion 
speech, iTj. ; his political em- 
barrassment satirised, 134 ; 
overtures of Ministers to 
Canning, 135 ; intermediary 
between Lord Wellesley and 
Lord Liverpool, 136 ; de- 
nounces oligarchical preten- 
sions, 136-37, 213-15, 218; 
declines the Foreign Office 
without leadership of the 
House of Commons, 137; his 
inconsistent statements there- 
on, 138 ; distrust of him and 
preference of Castlereagh and 
Perceval, 139 ; general impres- 
sion of his treacherj', 140; 
Moore's lines on, xh. ; Can- 
ning out of office, 141-47 ; 
takes up the Catholic question, 
141, 144 ; elected for Liver- 
pool, 142, 145, 147; on the 



CANNING 

quarrel (1812) with America, 
1 43, 144 ; on the trade of India 
with China, 144 ; supports vote 
of thanks to Wellington and 
grant by Government, 1 45 ; 
liis isolation in Parliament, 
}1). ; his Lisbon embassy, 146- 
48 ; banquets to him at Lis- 
bon and Bordeaux, 147 ; Presi- 
dent of Board of Control, 148 ; 
his Indian policy, 149 ; his 
relation to the Sidmouth and 
Castlereagh system, 150-52 ; 
his conduct with reference to 
the trial of Queen Caroline, 
152-57; his resignation of 
office, 152, 157 ; negotiations 
for his readmission into the 
Cabinet, 158 ; appointed Go- 
^•ern or- General of India, 160 ; 
Foreign Secretarj' and Leader 
of the House of Commons, 
] 60-82 ; intrigues against 
him, 161, 175, 182 ; member for 
Harwich, 164; contrast be- 
tween him and Castlereagh, 
162-63, 164-68; House of 
Commons under Canning's 
leadership, 163-64; his opi- 
nion of the Treaty of Vienna, 
165 ; his view of the Holy 
Alliance, 166 ; his policj' in 
regard to the Congress of Ve- 
rona ; as to Greece, the Slave 
Trade, South American Inde- 
pendence, the Spanish Eevo- 
lution, 168-73; his difficulties 
with the King, 173-76 ; the 
King converted to his views, 
176-77; his policy in regard 
to Greece, Russia, and Turkey, 
177-80 ; his intervention on 
behalf of Portugal, 180-81 ; 
his visit to Paris and diffi- 
culties with the Duke of Wel- 
lington, 181-S2; attends the 
Duke of York's funeral, and 



Index 



!29 



CANiN'INU 

visits Lord Liverpool at BatJi, 
and Huskisson at Eartham, 
183 ; illness at Brighton, 184 ; 
conferences with Peel and the 
King- arising out of Lord 
Liverpool's illness, %b. ; King- 
sends for Canning on Liver- 
pool's resignation, negotiations 
as to the Premiership, and 
appointment of C-anning, 184- 
86 ; his difficulties in forming 
an administration, refusal of 
Peel to join him, and secession 
of five other Ministers, 187; 
composition and character of 
the new Ministry, and hostility 
of the Duke of Wellington, 
188, 189; divided feehngs 
among the Whigs, Grey, Lans- 
downe, and Brougham, to- 
wards Canning, 190, 191 ; fa- 
tigue of Canning, 192, 193 ; 
his illness and death, 193-195 ; 
his funeral, 196 ; provision for 
his family opposed in the 
House of Commons, pension 
granted to his widow and 
sons, 197 ; Canning as an 
orator, 199; his fastidiousness 
and elaborate preparation, 199 
-200 ; spontaneity of his wit ; 
201, 202 ; his theory of parlia- 
mentary speaking, 202, 203; 
illustration of his eloquence, 
203-208 ; compared as an 
orator with Pitt and Fox, 209- 
210 ; his study of the House 
of Commons, and failure to 
command it, 210 ; distrust and 
fear of him, 211 seriq.\ his 
political position relative to 
the Whigs, 211-15; his de- 
meanour in the Cabinet, and 
alleged impatience and indo- 
lence, 219; at home and 
among his friends, 220-21 ; 
his literary tasks and produc- 



CHARLOTTE 

tions, 222 ; his domestic habits 
and strong family alfection ; 
hnes on his son's death, 223 ; 
Frere's verses on, 225 

Canning, George Charles, son of 
the statesman, verses on his 
death, 223 

Canning, Stratford, uncle of the 
statesman, and father of Lord 
Stratford de Piedcliffe, takes 
charge of George Canning, 10 ; 
introduces him to the Whig- 
leaders, 30 

Canning, Mrs., mother of the 
statesman. See Hunn, Mrs. 

Canning, Mrs. (afterwards Vis- 
countess Canning), wife of the 
statesman, 70, 73, 160, 191, 
22-2 

Carlisle, Earl of. See Morpeth, 
Viscount 

Carlyle, Thomas, 5, 206 

Caroline, Queen, formerly Prin- 
cess of Wales, 152-57, 161 

Castlereagh, Viscount (after- 
v;ards Marquis of London- 
derry), his early advancement, 
58 ; Colonial and War Secre- 
tary, 108; his quarrel and duel 
with Canning, 121-26 ; absence 
from Perceval Ministry, 128, 

129, 132 ; joins it as Foreign 
Secretary, 133; after Perceval's 
death leader of the House of 
Commons, 137; rivalry with 
Canning, 137-39, 145, 146, 
149, 150, 152, 211 ; generosity 
to Canning, 157 ; commits 
suicide, 160 ; as a public 
speaker, 162, 163 ; his foreign 
policy, 166-68, 174, 193 

Catholic disabilities, 104, 105, 

130, 135, 141, 142, 173, 191, 
216 

Caucus, power of, 218 
Charles X. of France, 181 
Charlotte, Queen, 8, 21 



230 



George Canning 



CHATEAUBRIAND 

Chateaubriand, lOo, 222 

Chatham, first Earl of, England 
nnder, 42-44 ; contrast be- 
tween the elder and the 
younger Pitt, 45 ; Canning the 
inheritor of Chatham's foreign 
policy, 190, 215 ; his feeling 
towards 'connections,' 213, 214 

Chatham, second Earl of, 103, 
107, 111, 120, 123, 129 

Chatterton, 'Eowley,' forgeries 
of, 2 

China, Indian trade with, 145 

Chiswick, death of Fox at, 102 ; 
Canning's illness and death 
there, 192-96 

Christ Church, Oxford, Canning 
at, 23 secici. ; the Dean (Cyril 
Jackson) of, 23-26 ; Speaking- 
Club at, 27-29 : Canning's 
associates at, 26-27 ; 37, 38 

Churchill, satires of, 6 

Cintra, Convention of, 116-18 

Clanricarde, Marquis of, son-in- 
law of Canning, 197 

Clarence, Duke of, Lord High 
Admiral, 189 

Coleridge, S. T., attacked by 
Canning, 65, 67, 68 

Commons, House of, in 1793, 
48-51 ; in 1823, 162-64 ; place 
of, in the Constitution, 217-18 

Concert. See European 

* Connections,' Canning on, 136, 
213-14 

Constitution, Eno-lish, real and 
ostensible, 94-96, 218 

Control, Board of, Canning a 
Commissioner of, 58 ; President 
of, 148-50 

Copenhagen, bombardment of, 
112-15 

Corn laws, 150, 190 

Costello, Miss Mary Anne. See 
Hunn, Mrs. 

Cottage, Royal, cabals at, 174, 
175 



DUNDAS 

Council, Orders in, 112, 143 

Creevy, Mr., 142, 149 

Crewe, Mrs., 30, 31 

Croker, J. W., 61, 193, 194, 213, 
214 

Crown, power of, 96, 101, 136, 
218 

Cumberland, Duke of, imputa- 
tions on, 130 



Dalrymple, Sir Hew, 116 

Danish fleet, seizure of, 112 

Davies, Dr. Jonathan, head- 
master of Eton, afterwards 
provost, 13, 14 

Debating societies at Eton, 15 ; 
at Oxford, 27-29 ; in London, 
39 

Denmark, Crown Prince of, 113 

Devonshire, Duke of, 192 

Dickens, Sir Guy, 5; Mr. Gus- 
tavus, 8 

Disraeli, Benjamin, afterwards 
Earl of Beaconsfield, 18, 37, 
39, 95, 99, 215 

Dissenters, Canning's feeling to, 
215, 216 

Distress and disafPection in 
England, 150-51 

Dodsley, bookseller, 3, 6 

Drummond, Sir William, 27 

Dryden, 5, 222 

Dudley and Ward, Lord, on the 
Canningites, 145; Canning's 
alarmist speeches, 150 ; For- 
eign Secretary, 179, 188 ; his 
fastidiousness, 192 

Duel, Canning's, with Castle- 
reagh, 12.5-26 

Dundas, Henry (afterwards 
A^iscount Melville), his parlia- 
mentary efficienc3% 49 ; Secre- 
tary of State and Treasurer of 
the Navy, 58 ; his impeach- 
ment, 88, 89 ; Canning's de- 
fence of, 90 



Index 



231 



'EDINBURGH REVIEW ' 

•' Edinbuegh Eeview,' 63 

Edmonds, Mr. Charles, on writers 
in ' Anti-Jacobin,' 62 

Eldon, Lord Chancellor, his 
degree at Oxford, 33 ; his re- 
lations with the Princess of 
Wales, 73 ; his feeling towards 
Canning, 121, 124 ; on Canning 
and Perceval, 127 ; on over- 
tures to Canning, 135 ; on 
Lord Liverpool's illness, 184 ; 
on the formation of Canning's 
Ministry, 186 

Ellenborough, Lord Chief Jus- 
tice, a member of the Cabinet, 
93, 94, 103 ; his judicial 
tyranny, 151, 165 

Ellis, Charles, afterwards Lord 
Seaforth, 27, 73, 125 

Ellis, George, hO^, 61, 62 

Elphinstone,Governor of Madras, 
157 

England under Chatham, 42-44 ; 
under the younger Pitt, 44-46 ; 
distress and disaffection in, 
150-t51 

English language, use of, in dip- 
lomacy, 33 

Erskine, Thomas (afterwards 
Lord), his eloquence, 51 ; Lord 
Chancellor, 93 

Erskine, Mr. (Minister at Wash- 
ington), 143 

Esterhazy, Prince, Austrian 
Ambassador, 173, 176, 177 

Eton, Canning at, 12, 15, 22 

European concert. Canning on, 
172, 173, 217 

Earee, Dr., 195 
Ferdinand VII. of Spain, 171 
Fitzpatrick, General, 66, 103 
Fitzwilliam, Earl, 53, 103 
Foreign Affairs, Canning Under 
Secretary for, 54-59 ; Principal 
Secretary of State for, 106- 
20, 160-82 



GEORGE III. 

Fouche, 114 

Fox, Charles James, Canning's 
early relations with, 39, 46 ; his 
eloquence and debating power, 
50, 209 ; his dislike of Can- 
ning, 54 ; his coalition with 
North, %^ ; his secession from 
Parliament, 87 ; on Pitt's 
funeral and debts, 92 ; Foreign 
Minister and parliamentarj^ 
leader in Grenville's Admin- 
istration, 93, 101, 102, 104; 
attacks of Canning on, 87, 97; 
his declining health, 99; Can- 
ning proposed as leader under 
him, 100, 101; his death, 102, 
163, 193 

Foxcote, in Warwickshire, Can- 
nings at, 2 

France, Canning's projected visit 
to, 32, 33 ; revolutionary ty- 
ranny in, 52 ; his visit to Paris, 
181 ; his feeling towards, 216 

Frederick, afterwards the Great, 
King of Prussia, 5, 42, 43 

French language. Canning's early 
ignorance of, 32, 33 ; ridiculed 
for, 108-10 

Frere, Hookham, at Eton, 14 ; 
his lifelong attachment to 
Canning, 16 ; on Canning's 
want of scientific knowledge, 
35 ; his contributions to tlie 
* Anti- Jacobin,' 62 ; ?\[inister 
at Madrid, 118, 119, 128; 
verses on Canning's death, 225 

Gambier, Lord, 113 

Ganick, David, 8, 9 

Garvagh , Londonderry, branch 
of the Cannings at, barony of 
in Irish peerage, 6, 197 

Gascoyne, General, 140 

George III., King, his visits to 
Eton, 14, 21; his opposition 
to Catholic claims and his in- 
sanity, 74 ; his proscription of 



232 



George Canning 



GEORGE, PRINCE OF WALES 

Fox, 85, 89 ; Canning on his 
place in the Government, 101 ; 
Ijis dismissal oi Grenville's Ad- 
ministration on Catholic ques- 
tion, lOi-105 ; his attitude to 
the second Portland Ministr}-, 
107, 121 ; appoints Mr. Perce- 
val Portland's successor, 127 ; 
his final attack of insanity, 130 
George, Prince of Wales, after- 
wards Prince PiCgent and 
George IV., his readiness of re- 
partee, 14 ; his anger at the 
regency restric ions, 131 ; feel- 
ing towards and overtures to ' 
Grey and Grenville, Wellesley 
and Canning, 133, 136; his 
persecution of Queen Caroline, 
152-57 ; his y^roscription of 
Canning, 158 ; his anger with 
Canning, 161 ; his discontent 
with Canning's foreign policy, 
and intrigues against him 174 
secici. ; becomes reconciled to 
him, 177 ; his wishes in re- 
gard to Lord Liverpool's suc- 
cessor, 185 seqq. ; appoints 
Cf^nning Blrst Lord of the 
Treasury, 186 ; his falsehoods, 
191 ; his civilities to Canning, 
177, 195 
Giflford, William, 62, 70 
Gladstone, Mr. (afterwards Sir) 

John, 142. 160 
Gladstone, W. E., 15, 99 
Gloucester House, Canning's re- 
sidence at, 220 
Goddard, Archdeacon, 27 
Godwin, William, 40-42 
Granville, Earl. See Leveson- 

Gower 
Grattan, Henry, 130, 144, 164 
Gray, Thomas, 12, 15, 134 
Greece, liberation of, 19, 168- 

69, 178-180 
Grenville, Lord, Foreign Secre- 
tary in Pitt's first Administra- 



HUNN 

tion, 56, 57, 58 ; First Lord of 
the Treasury, 93, 97, 101 ; pro- 
poses ottice to Canning, 100- 
103 ; dismissed by the King, 
105 ; negotiations of Perceval 
with, 127 ; overtures from the 
Prince PtCgent to, 131 ; of 
Wellesley to, 136 ; of Liverpool 
to, 159 

Grenville, Thomas, 89, 103 

Greville, Charles, 191 

Grey, Earl (formerly Mr. Grey 
and Viscount Howick), his 
eloquence, 50 ; Foreign Secre- 
tary in succession to Fox, 104 ; 
his Catholic Military Service 
Bill, 104-105 ; negotiations 
with, 127, 131, 133, 136; his- 
attack on Canning, 191 

Hammond, Mr , 62 

Harcourt, Lord, 8 

Harrowby, Lord. See Kyder, 

Dudley ? 

Harwich, Canning's election for,. 

162 
Hastings, Canning's election for, '. 

142 \ 

Hastings, Marquis of (formerly | 

Earl Moira), 136, 149, 158, 159, 1 

165 ' 

Hawkesbury, Lord. See Jenkin- 

son 
Hermopolis, Bishop of, 169-70 
Hertford, Marquis of. &ee Yar- 

motxth, Earl of ' 

Hillsborough, Earl of, 4 i 

Holland, Lord, 26, 39, 104, 190> ' 

202, 213, 218 
Homer, 14 
Hone, W., 64, 151 
Horner, Francis, 132, 133, 164 
Howick, Viscount. See Grey, Earl 
Hunn, Mrs. (previously Mrs. 

Canning, then Mrs. Eeddish, 

mother of Canning), her first 

marriage, 5; her epitaph on 



Index 



233 



HUSKISSON 

her husband, 7 ; goes on the 
stage, and marries Eeddish 
the actor ; afterwards marries 
Mr. Hunn, 69 ; attacks on her 
after her retirement, 69-72 ; 
her character, 73 ; Canning's 
affection for, 69, 73, 223 ; her 
death, 69 

Huskisson, William, Under 
Secretary for Colonies, 4 9 ; his 
ineffectiveness in debate, 50 ; 
Secretary of Treasury, 108 ; 
adheres to Canning, 127 ; his 
enlightened fiscal views, 132 ; 
First Commissioner of Land 
Eevenue, 145 ; Canning's 
friendship for, 160; his minis- 
terial efficienc3% 177 ; visit of 
Canning to, 183 

Hyde Abbey School, Canning 
at, 11 

India, Canning a Commissioner 
of, 58 ; trade with China, 144: ; 
Canning's policy as President 
of the Board of Control, 149- 
50 ; thanked by the Court of 
Directors, 157 ; nominated as 
Governor-General, 159 

Ireland, settlement of the Can- 
nings in, 3 ; parliamentary 
union with England, 74 ; Irish 
question a European ques- 
tion, 173 

Irish Office, relations of, with 
Home Office, 59 ; Canning pro- 
posed as Chief Secretary, 85 

Jackson, Cyril, Dean of Christ 
Church, his character and in- 
fluence, 23-26 ; his interest in 
Canning, and influence on him, 
29, 40, 108 

Jacobinism, Canning's youthful, 
89 

James I., his Irish grant to 
George Canning of Foxcote, 2 



LEIGH 

Jenkinson, Kobert Banks (after- 
wards Lord Hawkesbury and 
Earl of Liverpool), at Oxford, 
26, 28, 29 ; his maiden speech, 
46 ; as man of business and 
debater, 50 ; Canning's quar- 
rel with, 91 ; application of 
George III. to, 92 ; part in pro- 
posed Grenville-Canning coali- 
tion, 103 ; Home Secretary, 
108 ; War and Colonial Se- 
cretary, ] 28 ; First Lord of 
Treasury, 137 ; his relations 
with Canning during the pro- 
ceedings against the Queen, 
152, 154, 155, 156, 158, 160; 
his character as Prime Min- 
ister, 164; his fatal illness, 
183, 184 

Johnson, Dr., 4, 6, 68 

Jones, Gale, 129 

Junius, Letters of, 6 

Keppel, Admiral, election for 

Windsor, 39 
King. See George III. and George 

IV. and Crown 
King's friends, 105 
Knight, Charles, of Windsor, 

XDublishes ' Microcosm,' 17 
Knighton, Sir W., 40, 175, 176, 

177,194 

Lamb, Charles, attacked by 
Canning, 64, 65 

Lamb, William, afterwards Vis- 
count Melbourne, attacks 
' Anti- Jacobin ' writers, 61-62 

Lambton, Mr., 16, 146, 201 

Lansdowne, first Marquis of. See 
Shelburne 

Lansdowne, third Marquis of. See 
Petty 

Lay bach, circular of, 166 

Leigh, Mrs. Canning's verses to, 
81 



234 



George Canning 



LE MARSHALS 

Le Marshals of Foxcote, 2 

' Leopard ' and ' Chesapeake,' 

affair of, 143 
Le Peaux, La Reveillfere, 64 
Leveson-Gower, Lord G., after- 
wards Earl Granville, 26, 31, 

100-101, 127, 128, 176 
Liverpool, Canning member for, 

142, 145, 162 
London, Canning born in, 1 ; 

Corporation of, 3 ; Canning's 

return to, 39 ; habits of his 

life in, 219-21 
London, treaty of, 180 
Londonderrj^ settlement of the 

Cannings in, 2 
Long, Charles, afterwards Lord 

Farnborongh, 49, 127 
Lopez, Mr. Manasseh, 81 
Louis XVIII. of France, 171 
Lyndhurst, Lord (Sir John 

Copley), 188, 192 
Lyte, Mr., his ' Historv of Eton 

College,' 12 



PEEL 

Neutrality, obligations of, 143 
Newcastle, Duke of, 184 
Newport, Canning's election for, 

188 
Newspapers, rising importance 

of, 6 
Newton, Mr. John Frank, 27, 28, 

29,32, 37,38, 169 
Newtown, Canning's election for, 

47, 142 
Nicholas, Emperor of Eussia, 

178, 179 
Non-Intercourse Act (United 

States), 143 
Nugent, Lord, 203, 204, 205 



O'Neill, Sir Phelim, his rebel- 
lion, 1 

' Oracle,' the, and other papers. 
Canning's squibs in, 75-84 

Oxford, Canning goes to, 23 ; 
effect of its studies on him, 
35-37; his dislike of, 37-38 



Melbourne, Viscount. See 
Lamb 

Melville, first Viscount. See 
Dundas 

Melville, second Viscount, 188 

Moira, Earl of. Sec Hastings 

Moore, Sir John, 117-19 

Moore, Thomas, m, 140 

Mornington, Lord. See Welles- 
ley 

Morpeth, Viscount (afterwards 
Earl of Carlisle), 26, 61-62, 
189 

Mulgrave, Lord, 129 

Munroe, General, 157 

Musse Etonenses, 15 



Napier, Sir William, 119 
Napoleon L, 75, 83, 114, 115, 

116, 119, 146, 166 
Navarino, battle of, 180, 197 



Palmerston, Viscount, 99, 115, 
128, 215 

Pamphlets, importance of, 6 

Parliament, British. See Com- 
mons, House of 

Parliament, Irish. See Ireland 

Paymaster- General (joint), Can- 
ning appointed, 59 

Pedro, Dom, King of Portugal 
and Emperor of Brazil, 180 

Peel, Mr. (afterwards Sir) 
Robert, on Canning's intrigues, 
140; Home Secretarj^, 158; 
his parliamentary adroitness, 
164; opposition to Canning's 
foreign policy, 170, 215 ; his 
ministerial efficiency, 177 ; ne- 
gotiations with Canning on 
Liverpool's resignation, 184, 
185, 186 ; his alleged treachery 
on Catholic question, 187 ; re- 



Index 



235 



PELLEW 

signs Home Office, 188; liis 
parliamentary rivalry with 
Canning, 211 

Pellew, Dean, his Life of Sicl- 
mouth, 84 

Peninsula, War in the, began, 
112 

Perceval, Spencer, his early re- 
lationship with Princess of 
Wales, 73 ; Canning's arrange- 
ments for, 100, 102 ; his rivalry 
with Canning, 105, 117, J221 
25 ; Prime Minister, 128 ; his 
qualities as leader, 129 ; his 
Kegency Bill, 130, 131 ; his 
assassination, 135 ; his youth- 
ful Eadicalism, 168 

Petersfield, Canning elected for, 
142 

Petty, Lord Henry, afterwards 
Marquis of Lausdowne, 98, 
107, 163, 188, 190 

Pindaree war, 149 

Pitt, William, the younger, Can- 
ning's sympathy with, 41, 55, 
92, 97-99, 213 ; two periods of 
his administration, 44-46; Can- 
ning's introduction to him, 47 ; 
his parliamentar}^ eloquence, 
49, 209 ; head of peace party 
in the Cabinet, 56 ; attacked 
in the ' Rolliad,' 66 ; his views 
of the union with Ireland, 74 ; 
his resignation and return to 
office, 74, 85 ; his proposals to 
Fox, Grenville, Canning, and 
Addington, 85, 86, 88, 89 _; his 
death, 89 ; his unhappiness 
out of office, 99, 100 ; Mr. Pitt's 
friends, 105, 164 ; his commer- 
cial principles, 45, 147, 189, 
190 ; his opposition to political 
'connections,' 213, 214 

Plantation of Ulster, 2 

Plunket, Mr., afterwards Lord, 
164 

Pole, Wellesley, 148 



ROBINSON 

Polignac, Cardinal, 3 

' Political Eclogues ' and ' Proba- 
tionary Odes,' 65 

Political literature in England, 6 

Ponsonby, George, 115 

Pope, Alexander, 1, 5 

Portland, third Duke of, Home 
Secretary, 59 ; resigns Presi- 
dency of Council, 88 ; his over- 
tures to the King, 106 ; Prime 
Minister, 107 ; his incapacity, 
111, 122; informed of the 
designs of France on Portugal, 
113 ; his part in the Castle- 
reagh- Canning quarrel and 
resignation, 121-23 

Portland, fourth Duke of, 70, 
188 

Portugal, affairs of, 113, 116, 
146, 180, 181 

Prime Minister, constitutional 
position of, 95, 218 

Putney, battle of, 119, 125-26 



* Quarterly Eeview,' 63, 220, 
222 

Queen. See Charlotte, and Caro- 
line 



Radical reform, 218 
Eebellions, Irish, 3 
Eeddish, the actor, 9, 10, 69 
Reform, parliamentary, 53, 142, 

217-19 
Eegency Bill, 130-32 
Eegent, Prince. See George 
Eepressive legislation in Eng- 
land, 150-52 
Eichards, Mr., of Hyde Abbey 

School, 11, 12 
Eoberts, Dr., Provost of Eton, 18 
Robinson, Mr. Frederick (after- 
wards Viscount Goderich and 
Earl of Eipon), his parlia- 
mentary and business qualities, 



236 



George Cannixg 



' ROLLIAD 

164, 177, 191, 2]1; his poli- 
tical views, 186, 190 
' Kolliad,' the, 65, ^<o, 71 
Romilly, Sir Samuel, 94, 129 
Eose, George, 49, 89, 96, 127 
Rush, Mr., United States Min- 
ister, 202, 220 
Russell, Lord John (afterwards 

Earl), 164, 203, 215 
Russia, affairs of, 168, 171, 175, 

178, 179 
Ryder, Dudley, afterwards Lord 

Harrowby, 59 
Ryder, Richard, 128, 129 

Salisbuey, Marquis of, 36 

Scheldt. See Walcheren 

Scott, General, his curious will, 
70 

Scott, Sir Walter, 1, 40, 147, 222 

Shaftesbury, seventh Earl of, 
140 

Sharp, Richard, 212 

Shelburne, Earl of (afterwards 
Marquis of Lansdowne), 190 

Sheridan, R. B., his Bob Acres, 
19 ; his early relations with 
Canning, 39, 46 ; his elo- 
quence, 50, 201-202; Canning's 
attacks on, 81, 84, 87 

Sinecures, Canning on, 130 

Slave trade, Canning's views on, 
32, 59, 168-170; abolition of, 
102 

Smith, Adam, 45, 190 

Smith, ' Bobus,' 17 

Smith, James, 17, 22 

Smith, Sydney, 221 

Smollett, Tobias, 4 

Somerset, Lord Charles, 107 

South America, affairs of, 168, 
171, 172, 173, 174, 177 

Southey, Robert, 67, 68 

Spain, affairs of, 116, US, 170, 
171, 172, 180, 181, 182 

Speaking Club at Christ Church, 
27-29, 183 



VIMIERA 

'Spectator,' the, 13, 15 
Spencer, Earl, 53 
Spencer, Lord Henry, 17, 27, 29 
Spencer, William, 27, 31 
Stanhope, Lady Hester, 47, 50, 

88, 140 
Stanhope, Spencer, 94 
Stapleton, Augustus, 114, 148,. 

177, 184, 193, 194, 200 
Steele, Sir Richard, 1 
Stowell, Lord, 154, 203 
Stratford de Redcliffe, Viscount, 

6, 197 



Talleyt?and, 57, 114 
Theophilanthropists, sect of, 64 
Thompson, Seth, D.D., 4 
Tichtield, Marquis of. See Port- 
land, fourth Duke of 
Tiernej', Mr., 50, 81, 84, 164, 190, 

207 
Tiernev, Sir Matthew, 194, 195 
Tilsit, treaty of, 112 
' Tomkins, Silly Mr.,' 178 
Toryism, Canning's conversion 
to, 41 ; his later position to- 
wards, 211 
Tralee, Canning elected for, 74 
Treasurership of Kavy, Canning 
desirous of, 58 ; appointed to, 
86 
Turkey, affairs of, 168, 178-180 



Ulster, plantation of, 2 
Union, Act of. See Ireland 
United States, controversies 
with, 143, 144 



Vansittart,N. (afterwards Lord 
Bexley), 27, 83, 133, 148, 188 

Verona, congress of, 167 

Vienna, congress of, 147 ; treaty 
of, 165 

Vimiera, battle of, 116 



Index 



23; 



WALCHEREN 

Walcheeen expedition, 122, 
123 

Wales, Prince of. See George IV. 

Wales, Princess of. 8ee Caroline, 
Queen 

Wallace, Mr. (afterwards Lord), 
38,91 

War, Peninsular, 112 

Wellesley, Marquis (formedy 
Lord Mornington), at Eton, 
14, 16; Junior Lord of Trea- 
sury, 49 ; as debater, 50 ; min- 
isterial negotiations with, 100, 
123, 135, 136 ; British Minister 
in Spain, 119 ; Foreign Secre- 
tary, 128, 129 ; resigns, 133 ; 
acts in concert with Canning, 
141, 145 

Wellington, Duke of (Sir Arthur 
Wellesley), Chief Secretary 
for Ireland, 108 ; in the Penin- 
sular War, 112, 116, 119, 120, 
129 • at the Congress of Ve- 
rona, 168 ; his antagonism to 
Canning, 172,173, 179, 181, 182, 
186 ; declines to serve under 
Canning, resigns the Master- 
Generalship of the Ordnance, 
188, and the command-in- 
chief; his dislike and dispa- 
ragement of Canning, 189, 
219 

Wendover, Canning elected for, 
54 



YORKE 

West, the painter, 11 

Western, Maximilian, 38 

Westmoreland, Lord, 58, 103, 
107, 188 

Whigs, Canning's early connec- 
tion with, 39 ; their junction 
with Pitt, 53 ; their oligar- 
chical pretensions, 136 ; their 
coalition with Canning, 190, 
211 ; Canning's dislike of 
them, 218 

Whitbread, Samuel, 51, 90-91, 
145 

Wilberforce, William, 11, 15, 59, 
75, 137, 140, 153, 197, 199, 
207 

Wilkes, John, 6, 44 

Wilson, Sir Kobert, 203 

Windham, William, 49, 53, 87, 
92, 98, 103, 163 

Wolcot, Dr. John (Peter Pindar), 
34, 70-72 

Wolfe, General, 43 

Wolfe, Eev. C, 119 

AVood, Alderman, 153 

Wortley, Stuart, 135 

Wright, the publisher, 61 

Wynn, Charles W., 159, 160, 173 



Yarmouth, Earl of, 125 
Yelpers,the, 192, 193 
York, Duke of, 24, 130, 133, 18.' 
Yorke, Charles, 89, 103, 129 



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THE TWO SPIES : NATHAN HALE AND JOHN ANDRE. By 

Benson J. Lossing, LL. D. Illustrated with Pen-aud-Ink Sketches. 

Containing also Anna Seward's " Monody on Major Andre." 

Square 8vo, cloth, gilt top, $2.00. 

This work contains an outline sketch of the most prominent events in 
the Uvea of the two notable spies of the American Revolution— Natlian Hale 
and John Andre, illustrated by nearly thirty en.gravings of portraits, build- 
inifs, sketches by Andre, etc. Amontr these illustrations are pictures ot 
eotnmemorative rnonuments : one in memory o1 Hale at (.'oventry, Connecti- 
cut; of Andre in Westminster xlbbcy ; one to mark the spot at TaiTytown 
where Andre was captured ; and the memorial-sione at Tappaan set up by 
Mr. Field to mark the spot where Andre was executed. The volume also 
contains the full text and original notes of the famous " Monody on Major 
Andre," written by his friend Anna Seward, with a portrait and 'biographi- 
cal sketch of Miss Seward, and letters to her by Major Andre. 

THE REAR-GUARD OF THE REVOLUTION. By Edmund 

KiKKK, author of " Among the Pines," etc. With Portrait of John 

Sevier, and Map. 12mo, cloth, $1.50. 

Many readers will recall a volume published during the war, entitled 
" Among the Pines," appearing under the pen-name of Edmund Kirke. 
This book attained a remarkable success, and all who have read it will 
recall its spirited and graphic delineations of life in the South. "The 
Rear-Guard of the Revolution," from the same hand, is a narrative of the 
adventures of the pioneers that first crossed the Alleghanies and settled 
in what is now Tennessee, under the leadership of two remarkable men, 
James Robertson and John Sevier. Sevier is notably the hero of the nar- 
rative. His career was certainly remarkable, as mucii so as that of Daniel 
Boone. The title of the book is derived from the fact that a body of hardy 
volunteers, under the leadership of Sevier, crossed the mountains'to uphold 
the patriotic cause, and by their timely arrival secured the defeat of the 
British anny at King's Mountain. 

" Mr. Kirke has not only performed a real and lasting service to Ameri- 
can historical literature in the production of this work, but has honored 
the memory and i>aid a tribute of richly-deserved praise to a band of men 
as brave and loyal and heroic as ever "poured out tlieir lives and treasure 
for their country's good." — Xew York Observer. 

" No work of the kind that equals it in interest and importance has been 
published for many years. It is a distinct contribution to the history of the 
American Revolution, and even to the most industrious student of that 
l)eriod many of its facts will come as a revelation." — PMladelphia Times. 

"The book is full of valuable information and historic wealth, while 
the gracefulness of style and the simplicity of the language make it one of 
the most useful and entertaining publications of the year."— ^os^o/i Evening 
Gazette. 



New York: D. APPLETON k CO., 1, y, & 5 Bond Street. 



D. APPLET ON d CO.' 8 PUBLICATIONS. 



eraohcal and Geolo-ical Distribution of xViiin.alP The author has aimed to 
nreS to 1 is readers such of the m..re siguificaut lacts couuecled with the past 
?M prLent distribution of aniuml ^tte^as^ mighty lead J^o a p^roperc^m of 



THE GEOGRAPHICAL AND GEOLOGICAL DISTRI- 
BUTION OF ANIMALS. By Angelo Heilprin, Professor 
of Invertebrate Paleontology at the Academy of Natural Sciences,' 
Philadelphia, etc. 12mo. $2.00. 

" An important contribution to physical science is Angelo Heilprin's ' Geo- 

'^ ' - '- ■ ■ ' Tv:,._ji V A,.;,.,„iai q^he author has aimed to 

ts connected with the past 
to a proper conception of 
the relations'of'xistinL' "fauiia", and also to lun.isli the student with a \vork of 
General reference wherein the more salient features of the geography ai|d geolo- 
fyot'animal forms could be readily ascertained. While tl.is hook is addressed 
chiefly to tlie naturalist, it contains much intc.rmation. particularly on th^ sub- 
ject of the geographical distribution of animals the rapidly incveasing grow hot 
iome species Snd the gradual extinction of others, which wiU interest and in- 
struct the general reader. Mr. Heilprin is no believer in the doctrine ot inde- 
pendent creation, but holds that animate nature must be looked upon as a con- 
crete whole/'— Ae^t' York Sun. 

MICROBES, FERMENTS, AND MOULDS. By E. L. Troues 
SART. With 107 Illustrations. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

" Microbes are everywhere ; every species of plant has its special parasites, 
the vine havin^ more than one hundred foes of tbis kind. Fnntii ol a micrcscopic 
size, they have their uses in nature, since they clear the surface ot the earth In.m 
dead bodies and fecal matter, from all dead and uselots substances which are the 
refuse of life, and return to the soil the ^oluble mineral substances from which 
plants are derived. All fermented liquors, wine, beer, vineoar. etc., are artificially 
produced by the species of microbes called ferments; they also cause bread to 
rise. Others are injurious to us, for in the shape of spores and seeds they enter 
our bodies with air and water and cause a large number ot the diseases to whi< h 
thp flesh is heir. Many physicians do not accept the microbian theory, consider- 
inf' that when microbes are lound in the blood they are neither the cause of the 
disease nor the contat;iou3 element, nor the vehicle of contagion. In. ^I'at'ce the 
opponents of the inierobian theory are Robin, Becliamp, and Jcusset de Bellesnie; 
in Enoland, Lewis and Lionel Beale. The writer comes to the conclusion that 
Pasteur's microbian theory is the only one that explains all facts, —^ew loik, 
Tim(S. 

EARTHQUAKES AND OTHER EARTH MOVEMENTS. 

By John Milne, Professor of Mining and Geology in the Imperial 
College of Engineering, Tokio, Japan. With 38 Illustrations. 12mo. 
Cloth° ^1.75. 

"In this little book Professor Milne has endeavored to bring tocelher all that 
is known concerning the nature and causes of earthquake movements. His task 
was one of much difficulty. Proiessor Milne's excellent \v..rk iii the sdence ot 
seismology has been done in Japan, in a region of incessant shocks ol suthcient 
enero-y to make observation possible, yet. with rare exceptions, of no disastrous 
eflfects. He has baa the good fortune to be aided by Mr. ThoinasGray a e:entle- 
man of great coubtructive skill, as well as by Professors J. A. Ewinir, v\ . S. L hap- 
lin and his other colleagues in the scientific colony which has pathered about the 
Imoerial University of Japan. To these <:entlemen we owe the best of our sci- 
ence of seismology, for before their achievements we had nothing ol valiie con- 
cerning the physical conditions of earthquakes except the great works ot Kobert 
Mallet; and Mallet, with all his genius and devotion to the subject, had bnt lew 
chances to observe the actual shocks, and so failed to understand many ot their 
important features."— TAe Nation. 

New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, k 5 Bond Street. 



D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 



COMPARATIVE LITERATURE. By Hutcheson Macaulat 
PosNETT, M. D., LL. D., Professor of Classics and English Literature, 
University College, Auckland, New Zealand, author of " The Histori- 
cal Method," etc. 12mo. Cloth, $1.75. 

" Scarcely a volume in ' The Iiiternatio'ial Scientific Series ' appeals to a 
wider constituency than this, for it should interest men of science by its attempt 
to apply the scientific method to the study of comparative literature, and men 
of letter!? by its analy^^is and grouping of imaginative works of various epochs 
and nations. The author's tlieory is that the key to tiie study of comparative 
literature is ttie gradual expansion of social lite from clan to city, from city to 
nation, and from both of these to cosmopolitan humanity. His survey extends 
from the rudest beginning's of song to the poetry of the present day, and at each 
stage of his study he links the literary expression of a people witli their social 
development and conditions. Such a study could not easily fail of interesting 
and curious results."— ^o^ton Journal 

MAMMALIA IN THEIR RELATION TO PRIMEVAL 
TIMES. By Professor Oscar Schmidt, author of "The Doctrine 
of Descent and Darwinism." With ol Woodcuts. 12mo. Cloth, 
$1.50. 

" Professor Schmidt was one of the best authorities on the subject which he 
has here treated with the knowledge derived from the studies of a lifetime. We 
use the past tense in speaking of him, bec,au>^e, since this booli was printed, its 
accomplished author has died in the fullness of his powers. Although he pre- 
pared it nominally for the use of advanced students, there are few if any pages 
in his book which can not be readily understood by the ordinary reader. As 
the title implies. Professor Schmidt has traced the links of connection between 
existing mammalia and those types of which are known to us only through the 
disclosures of geology."'— iVew York Journal of Commerce. 

" The history of the development of animals and the history of the earth and 
geography are made to confirm one another. The book is illustrated with wood- 
cuts, which will prove both interesting and instructive. It tells of living mam- 
malia, piijs, hippopotami, camels, deer, antelopes, oxen, rhinoceroses, horses, 
elephants, sea-cows, whales, dogs, seals, insect-eaters, rodents, bats, semi apes, 
apes and their ancestors, and the man of the ivXwc^.''''— Syracuse (N. Y.) Herald. 

ANTHROPOID APES. By Robert Hartmann, Professor in the 
University of Berlin. With 63 Illustrations, 12mo. Cloth, $1.75. 

"The anthropoid, or manlike or tailless, apes Include the gorilla and chimpanzee 
of tropical Africa, the orans- of Borneo and Sumatra, and the gibbons of the East 
Indies, India, and some other parts of Asia. '] be author of the present work has 
given much attention to the group. Like most hving a.ologists he is an evolutionist, 
and holds that man can not have descende:! from any of the fossil species which have 
hitherto come under our notice, nor yet trom any of the species now extant ; it is 
more probable that both types have been produced from a common ground-form 
which has become extinct." — Tne Nation. 

•' It will be found, by those who follow the author's exegesis with the heed and 
candor it deserves, that the simian ancestry of man does not as y«t rest upon such 
solid and perfected proofs as to warrant the assumption of absolute certainty in which 
materialists indulire."— iVi?zf) York Sun. 

"The work is necessarily less complete than Huxley's monograph on 'The Cray- 
fish,' or Mivart"s on 'The Cat,' but it is a worthy companion of those brilliant vvorks; 
and in saying this we bestow praise equally high and deserved." — Boston Gazette. 



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